Coyote Legend, an eight-time stakes winner coming off the best race of his career, will take on regional newcomer Brethren, a half-brother to 2010 Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver, in the featured eighth race Monday at Remington Park in Oklahoma City.
The one-mile allowance has a purse of $40,000, and it highlights a special afternoon program for Labor Day.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – Coyote Legend will be after his eighth stakes win on Saturday when he takes on the comebacking Texas-bred Horse of the Year, Skip a Smile, in the $50,000 Assault at Lone Star Park. The race is one of four restricted stakes worth a combined $300,000 on the Stars of Texas Day program.
Coyote Legend might have a tactical advantage in the Assault, a one-mile stakes for 3-year-olds and up bred in Texas. He appears to have more natural speed than most of his rivals in the seven-horse field, and also drew well in post 5.
Coyote Legend could have advanced to the upcoming Grade 3, $300,000 Lone Star Park Handicap off his fourth-place finish in last month’s Grade 3, $200,000 Texas Mile. But his connections instead have chosen to spot him more conservatively, returning him to the overnight ranks for Friday night’s featured fifth race at Lone Star Park.
The owner-trainer-jockey team of Clarence Scharbauer Jr., Bret Calhoun, and Cliff Berry teamed to win two of the four stakes on Saturday night’s Texas Champions program at Sam Houston Race Park in Houston. They accounted for the richest race on the card with Coyote Legend in the $100,000 Star of Texas and the featured race for 3-year-olds, the $50,000 Groovy with Sword Trick.
The four stakes on the opening Saturday card were all restricted to horses bred in Texas.
Coyote Legend and Aces N Kings, who have won 10 stakes between them, will meet for the first time Saturday in a Lone Star Park turf allowance for 3-year-olds and up bred in Texas.
The 7 1/2-furlong allowance leads the track’s 12-race program.
Coyote Legend established himself as one of the top Texas-breds in training last year at 3, when he won five stakes, including two over older rivals. He comes into Saturday’s allowance off a second-place finish in the $50,000 Premiere at Lone Star on April 14.
When Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, Texas, kicked off its Thoroughbred meet last April, it was expected to be the last under the direction of MI Developments before Global Gaming Solutions, a subsidiary of the Chickasaw Nation tribe of Oklahoma, took over managing the track.
Coyote Legend, the runner-up in the $100,000 Prelude last weekend at Louisiana Downs, will probably make his next start in the $400,000 Oklahoma Derby at Remington Park on Oct. 10, trainer Bret Calhoun said.
Coyote Legend, who is based at Remington, has six main-track stakes wins since December and was the 4-5 favorite in the Prelude. He led the field through six furlongs in 1:13 under regular rider Bobby Walker Jr. but was overtaken in the late stages by Apart. Coyote Legend finished 1 1/2 lengths back in second in the 1 1/16-mile race and earned a Beyer Figure of 90.
BOSSIER CITY, La. – Saturday’s Prelude Day is not quite the premier program of the Louisiana Downs season, but it promises to be an awfully good dress rehearsal.
In addition to producing at least one Super Derby starter – the $100,000 Prelude winner receives an all-fees berth in the big dance next month – Saturday’s five supporting stakes, all on the grass, all at one mile in distance, and each worth $50,000, promise to provide plenty of additional participants for the stakes-rich Super Derby undercard on Sept. 25.
Coyote Legend will lead a large contingent of horses trainer Bret Calhoun has pointing for the Prelude Day card of six stakes at Louisiana Downs on Aug. 28. The races are worth a cumulative $350,000, and are designed as preps for the stakes on next month’s Super Derby Day program Sept. 25.
Calhoun said Coyote Legend is headed to the $100,000 Prelude after breezing five furlongs in a bullet 59.60 seconds at his Remington Park base Aug. 5. Bobby Walker Jr. was aboard for the move, and will have the mount in the Prelude.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas − Coyote Legend is not the kind of horse who needs excuses − he is a 3-year-old who has won five stakes − but handicappers might be wise to draw a line through his last start when assessing his chances Saturday in the $75,000 Assault at Lone Star Park.
The Assault, a 1 1/16-mile race, will mark Coyote Legend’s return to dirt after he experimented on turf and finished sixth as the even-money favorite in the $95,000 USA Stakes on May 31. The surface switch will be significant for him, said his trainer, Bret Calhoun.
