Lone Star to Run 18 Stakes, Minus Steve Sexton Mile

Lone Star Park released a revised stakes schedule June 4 for its reduced 36-day season, which began later than usual May 22 due to COVID-19 and continues through Aug. 2.

Eighteen stakes worth $1.4 million will be contested—though absent are some of the track's richest stakes, including the Steve Sexton Mile (G3).

Texas Champions Day, which Sam Houston Race Park had scheduled for March 21 but was not run due to a blown transformer, will now be hosted by Lone Star June 14. It features seven stakes worth $75,000 apiece: the Bara Lass Stakes, Groovy Stakes, Richard King Turf Stakes, Spirit of Texas Stakes, Star of Texas Stakes, Yellow Rose Stakes, and San Jacinto Turf Stakes.

The June 28 card will include three open stakes, the $75,000 Lone Star Park Turf Stakes for fillies and mares at a mile on grass, the $75,000 Grand Prairie Stakes for 3-year-olds at 1 1/16 miles, and the $75,000 Lone Star Mile for older horses.

More $75,000 stakes follow July 5 with the Wayne Hanks Memorial Stakes, the Lane's End Danny Shifflett Scholarship Stakes, and the Texas Stallion Stakes, with one division for fillies and another for colts and geldings.

The final four stakes will go July 26 as part of Stars of Texas Day: the $75,000 Valor Farm Stakes, the $75,000 Highlander Training Center Assault Stakes, and the Texas Thoroughbred Futurities, one for fillies and another for colts and geldings, each with an estimated purse of $100,000.

"We have worked closely with the Texas Horsemen's Partnership and the Texas Thoroughbred Association to put together a schedule that benefits everyone, especially our horsemen," Lone Star Park vice president of operations Kent Slabotsky said in a news release.

Lone Star will mostly operate on a Monday-through-Wednesday schedule while adding some Saturdays and Sundays. All stakes will take place on Sundays.  

The full stakes schedule can be viewed at Equibase.com.