Preview Racing


TQHA Sales Futurity And Retama Park Derby Top Saturday Card, John Deere Trials Occupy Nine Races
Grey Daze (#7) and Favorite Eagle (#1) will face-off again in the rich TQHA Sale Futurity on Saturday night at Retama Park.

© Coady Photography
TQHA Sales Futurity And Retama Park Derby Top Saturday Card, John Deere Trials Occupy Nine Races

By Tom Harris

SELMA, TX—JULY 23, 2014—When the sun sets low in the South Texas sky the stars will come out to shine in the richest race of the season at Retama Park Saturday in the $365,260 TQHA Sale Futurity at 350 yards.

Well the fact is, it will be completely nightfall by the time we get around to the TQHA Sale Futurity as the two-year-olds will line up in the 11th race of the program.

Probably won’t matter much to the connections of Grey Daze who turned in the best time of the trials in :17:89 for the 350 yards. Leon Bard trains the young daughter of Captain Courage and Francisco Calderon will have the riding call.

Calderon rode the filly in all four of her previous starts which includes her trial win and her trial win for the John Deere Juvenile Challenge at Houston.

An interesting rival here is Irene and Terry Stennett’s Favorite Eagle who nearly beat Grey Daze in the trial dash. Trained by Trey Wood and ridden by Larry Payne, Favorite Eagle had the lead in the trial until the final jump to the wire when nipped by Grey Daze.

So what has changed for the Saturday dash between these two? Not much for Grey Daze who breaks from post-position six, She will just need to bring her “A” game again. For Favorite Eagle, a shade better post-position could make the difference. Seemingly, young horses will have a tendency to drift at the start from inside and outside post-positions, then they have to make up that lost ground. So moving to post position 2 should help Favorite Eagle to stay on a more straight-line course. It’s a game of inches or less, so an ill-timed sneeze could make all the difference.

The three-year-olds will take the stage in The 18th Running of The Retama Park Derby at 400 yards. Worth $173,700, The Retama Park Derby will be offered as the 10th race of the card.

Sporting the colors of Valeriano Racing Stables is Echoes Of Love who turned in the best time for the trials of :20:02. Trained by Toby Keeton with Luis Vivanco to guide, Echoes Of Love will break from the inside post position for her eighth career start. The One Famous Eagle filly finished second in The Hobbs American Futurity at Zia Park last year and since has developed well as a three year old.

Main opposition will likely come from Docs First Fire, who almost ran down the top qualifier in the trial heat. After finishing sixth in last year’s Ed Burke Million Dollar Futurity(G1) at Los Alamitos, trainer Earl Armstrong gave the three-year-old gelding a few months to freshen up.

Earlier this year and on his way to Texas, he stopped in at Ruidoso Downs for a little fresh mountain air to the tune of :11:56 breezing for a 220 yard gate drill on June 30th. The son of Walk Thru Fire no sooner stepped off the trailer and qualified for The Retama Park Derby with the second best effort of the trials.

The first nine races on the card will be trials for the John Deere Juvenile Challenge at a distance of 350 yards. Promising two-year-olds will head postward for a chance to dance in the Juvenile final which will be run on closing day of the Quarter Horse Season, Saturday August 9th.

The eleven-race program will get underway with a 6:45 pm post time at Retama Park.