A Game Of Corona looks to step up to the Challenge at Lone Star Park.

© Richard Chamberlain

By Richard Chamberlain

GRAND PRAIRIE, TX–OCTOBER 18, 2023–Looking for his first stakes win, A Game Of Corona is looking to step up his game in the $150,000-estimated Adequan Derby Challenge Championship (G3). The 3-year-old sorrel gelding by Dealagame qualified for the Adequan Challenge Championship with a second-place finish to Dash For The Flash in the June 16 Sam Houston Derby Challenge.

"A Game Of Corona is a nice horse," says trainer John Stinebaugh. "He's never ran up to his potential, although every once in awhile he'll give us a big race. He's a real late-maturing horse and he's just hard to keep focused sometimes. He loves his job, but he's still got some growing up to do even this late in his 3-year-old year."

A lifetime earner of $41,906, A Game Of Corona has scored once in 13 career races, breaking his maiden in November 2022 at Lone Star Park. The gelding has gone to post for earnings of $25,688 in six races this season. In which he has also contested the August 19 TQHA Sires' Cup Derby (RG3) and the June 29 Silver Eagle Stakes, both at Retama Park. With a career record of 13-1-2 (1)-5, A Game Of Corona comes into the Adequan Derby Challenge Championship off a fifth-place run in a September 2 allowance at Retama Park.

"He can run," Stinebaugh says. "It's when you get him in a race and put the pressure on him, if he's in the thick of things, sometimes he's a little spooky and it's hard for him to bear down. Like I say, he's a nice horse but he's just not got there yet."

A Game Of Corona races for his breeder, Pete Scarmardo of Caldwell, Texas. Scarmardo has bred 164 registered foals, including nine stakes winners and 71 other winners from 118 starters. Scarmardo has bred the earners of more than $3.88 million, including Grade 1 winner Jess The Leader ($365,188), a 4-year-old gelding by Jess Louisiana Blue.

A Game Of Corona is one of four starters, each a winner, from eight registered foals out of Corona Blast ($17,950), whose foals have earned a cumulative $99,556. The gelding is a full brother to Corona Blast's leading earner, Game Winning Corona, a 2017 mare who bankrolled $48,414.

A Game Of Corona is one of 52 winners from 102 starters by his stakes-winning sire. An earner of $230,836, Dealagame scored in the 2019 Louisiana QHBA Sale Futurity (RG1) at Evangeline Downs, one of four wins from 15 career starts, and has sired the earners of more than $2.1 million. Dealagame's all-time leading earner, His Time To Deal ($325,860), has been scratched from this year's Bank Of America Challenge Championship (G1). Owned by Scarmardo, the 6-year-old stallion stands at Scarmardo and former AQHA President Johnny Trotter's Granada Farms at Wheelock, Texas.

"A Game Of Corona has been training super good," Stinebaugh says. "He works super good, he comes back good. He's a real sound horse. He's best when he draws right – when he draws close to the outside, where there's not a lot of traffic and he gets away good, he'll run a big race."

Stinebaugh's son Zack will send out Here Comes Candy in the $100,000-estimated Q-Racing Video Distaff Challenge Championship (G1). The veteran conditioner also had Scarmardo's stakes-winning Dealagame gelding His Time To Deal ($110,855) qualified to run in the $250,000-estimated Bank of America Challenge Championship (G1), but declined to enter the 5-year-old gelding.

"His Time To Deal developed an abscess in August at Retama," Stinebaugh says. "It has kind of plagued him back and forth, and I just couldn't get him ready. He'd almost get there and then go back again and it didn't work out, so we're going to back off for the rest of the year and do what's best for the horse."

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