Supermason, Texas Bling clash in Assault Stakes
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – Supermason appears to be the one Texas Bling will have to catch if he’s to win the $50,000 Assault Stakes for the third straight year Saturday night at Lone Star Park. The race is the main event on the annual Stars of Texas program featuring four restricted stakes worth a cumulative $300,000.
The card also includes an appearance by Grade 3 winner Promise Me Silver in the $50,000 Valor Farm Stakes and a pair of $100,000 divisions of the Texas Thoroughbred Futurity.
Supermason’s quickness has been on display all meet long, starting with his front-running win in the season’s first race, the Premiere Stakes over 6 1/2 furlongs April 7. He moved to two turns and turf for his next outing and turned in a memorable performance, setting a course record in a $25,000 optional-claiming allowance win May 15.
“He’s got a very high cruising speed,” said Bret Calhoun, who trains Supermason for Brad Grady. “The course has been quick, and it suited him very well. We kind of let him do his thing, and he ran them off their feet. It was a very impressive race.”
Supermason will break from post 2 in the one-mile Assault, a main-track race for Texas-breds that also drew Grade 3 winner Texas Air. Supermason will be returning to the statebred ranks for the race for 3-year-olds and up off a fifth-place finish in the Grade 3, $200,000 Lone Star Park Handicap. Texas Bling will be making his first start since finishing fourth in the Premiere.
C.J. McMahon has the mount on Supermason for Calhoun, who is sitting at 247 career stakes wins going into Saturday. The trainer has starters in three of the four stakes on the Stars of Texas card and has the capable Fish Trappe Road in the Dwyer Stakes at Belmont Park on Saturday.
Closer to home, the Calhoun trainee Promise Me Silver will be an odds-on favorite in the Valor Farm, which is for Texas-bred fillies and mares at six furlongs. She will be making her second start of the year, following an allowance win May 20 at Louisiana Downs.
“I thought it was kind of a workmanlike race,” Calhoun said. “She did what she needed to do. I didn’t have her completely ready. I thought we definitely got done what we needed to get done. It was a good prep for this spot, a good steppingstone.”
Promise Me Silver, who races for breeders Myrna and Robert Luttrell, will be seeking the eighth stakes win of her career Saturday. McMahon has the mount from post 7.
Calhoun will send out I’ve Got Rhythm and Gold Shock in the fillies’ division of the Texas Thoroughbred Futurity, a five-furlong race for 2-year-olds that has had its conditions tweaked. The race and its counterpart for colts and geldings continue to be open to graduates of any Texas Thoroughbred Association-sponsored auction, but they also are now open to all nominated Texas-breds.
Gold Shock, to be ridden by McMahon, is a half-sister to last year’s Grade 3 Bashford Manor winner, He’s Comin in Hot. But favoritism figures to side with either Bling On the Music, who popped a race-high Beyer Speed Figure of 78 for her debut win May 19 at Lone Star, or Pure Grey, a half-sister to Supermason who is coming off a 13-length debut win at Indiana Grand.
In the males’ division of the Futurity, Shaded boasts the field’s best Beyer, a 71 for his debut win June 17. Iram Diego has the mount for trainer Steve Asmussen.
The Futurity divisions were previously named the Texas Thoroughbred Association Sales Futurities.