DALLAS - In the colts and geldings division of the $125,000 Texas Stallion Stakes on Saturday night at Retama Park, some sort of pecking order should be established with a number of the state's top 2-year-olds entered in the six-furlong race, including Action Tonight, Leo's Last Hurrahy, Screen Pass, and Father Martin.
The race is one of seven restricted stakes on a card designed to celebrate inductions into the Texas Hall of Fame.
MIAMI - The undefeated Lavender Lass would have likely been the second choice in the wagering behind Ivanavinalot in the $400,000 My Dear Girl Stakes had trainer Bill White opted to run her. But White, Calder's perennial leading trainer, decided he would rather start her as the odds-on favorite in the $75,000 Cassidy Stakes, a six-furlong dash for 2-year-old fillies that is part of the undercard for Saturday's $1.65 million Festival of the Sun program.
MIAMI - Trainers Todd Pletcher and Marty Wolfson will be trying for duplicate victories with Texas Glitter and Coolbythepool on Saturday's Festival of the Sun undercard at Calder.
Texas Glitter has shipped back to south Florida to defend his title in the $100,000 Calder Turf Sprint Handicap while Coolbythepool seeks to repeat his victory here a year ago in the $100,000 Shocker T. Handicap.
MIAMI - Best of the Rest, who has dominated the local handicap division over his home track for the past several seasons, will attempt to continue his reign Saturday as the 121-pound highweight and likely favorite in the $100,000 Spend a Buck Handicap at Calder.
Best of the Rest defeated Dancing Guy to win both the 1999 and 2001 runnings of the Spend a Buck. The pair will match strides once again Saturday while joined by Sir Bear, High Ideal, Sea of Tranquility, Junior Deputy, Pay the Preacher, and Built Up.
MIAMI - Trainer Bill Cesare has a definite strategy in mind for Cellars Shiraz in Saturday's $200,000 Calder Oaks, and he's perfectly willing to share it with anyone willing to listen - even his 10 rivals for the 1 1/8-mile grass race for 3-year-old fillies.
"I'm going to the lead and whoever wants to come with me [can] go on with it," Cesare said. "And [if] they beat me, good luck to them."
MIAMI - Nobody would have blamed owner Gil Campbell and trainer Kathleen O'Connell if they had decided to pass Saturday's $400,000 My Dear Girl Stakes in lieu of the $1 million Breeders' Cup two weeks later. After all, their filly has won four of her five starts, including her two-turn debut by five widening lengths, and is currently ranked among the leading contenders for the Juvenile Fillies.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - One of the highlights of the Festival of the Sun at Calder Race Course on Saturday will be the attempt by the juvenile colt Lawbook to sweep the open division of the Florida Stallion Stakes Series. Lawbook already has won the first two parts of the series, the Dr. Fager on Aug. 10 and the Affirmed on Aug. 31, and now will test his statebred peers in the In Reality, a $400,000 stakes at 1 1/16 miles.
MIAMI - Tommy Heard Jr. won his first race in 1938 and has trained at least one stakes winner in eight consecutive decades. But until Lawbook came along to capture the Dr. Fager and Affirmed stakes this summer, the 84-year-old Texan not only had never won a Florida Stallion Stakes, but he also had never had a horse finish better than eighth in the 20-year history of the series.
MIAMI - For the first 15 years of her training career, Kathleen O'Connell toiled in near anonymity, whether she was racing cheap Michigan-breds at Detroit Race Course or making 10-hour round-trip drives from Tampa Bay Downs to Calder Race Course just to race one horse.
But all those years of hard work did not go unnoticed or unappreciated. Among those taking heed of her dedication and success was owner-breeder Gil Campbell, who began sending O'Connell some of his young homebreds in the mid-90's.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - When Ivanavinalot goes to post in Saturday's $400,000 My Dear Girl Stakes, she will be carrying a substantial family tradition with her. And whatever the result of the race, her owner and breeder, Gilbert Campbell, figures that she already has fulfilled the family destiny pretty well.