Grand Contender made it a clean sweep of Lone Star Park’s two graded stakes
this season with a decisive four-length triumph in Monday’s Grade 3, $200,000
Lone
Star Park Handicap.
Hero of the Texas Mile last month, the 2-5 favorite led throughout in this 1
1/16-mile fixture contested over a muddy track. Maintaining a lead between a
length and a length and a half through splits of :24 1/5, :47 4/5, and 1:11 4/5,
the six-year-old turned back a brief stretch challenge from Donoharm and pulled
away under Richard Eramia to win in a time of 1:43 4/5.
“My horse went so easy, he was just galloping around,” Eramia said. “Around
the last three-sixteenths he opened up.”
Owned by Maggi Moss, Grand Contender paid $2.80.
Donoharm held for second, 1 1/2 lengths clear of 27-1 outsider F J Uncle Vic.
Called to Serve, He Has Bling, and Texas Air completed the order of finish.
Grand Contender just earned his first stakes victory last year, and set a new
Delta Downs track record of 1:36.89, when taking the Delta Mile in late
November. Prior to that the Tom Amoss-trained gelding also set a new track
record at Indiana Downs when going a mile in 1:35.45.
Grand Contender closed out 2013 with a fourth placing in the Tenacious
Handicap at Fair Grounds and opened his six-year-old campaign with a pair of
runner-up efforts in the Louisiana and Mineshaft Handicaps. The son of Strong
Contender entered Monday’s race off consecutive wins in the March 15 Borgata at
Delta Downs by 6 3/4 lengths and the April 26 Texas Mile by a half-length. His
record now stands at 22-8-3-4, $540,860.
Bred in Kentucky by Epona Thoroughbreds, Grand Contender was an RNA twice at
auction, bringing only $19,000 as a Keeneland November weanling and $7,000 as a
Keeneland September yearling. He is out of the Twilight Agenda mare My Twilight
Dancer, making him a half-brother to fellow successful gelding Twilight Eclipse.
That one has thus far captured three Grade 2 events, including the Mac Diarmida
this past February, and banked more than $700,000 in career earnings.
The duo’s second dam is Grade 2-placed Shimmy and this is the female family
of Grade 2 hero and multiple Grade 1-placed Slavic.
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