Power Alert Seeks Riches at Evangeline Downs

Power Alert will try to notch the most lucrative victory of his career for a second straight race when he starts in the $300,000 Evangeline Downs Turf Sprint Stakes May 30 at the Opelousas, La. track.

Campaigned by James Covello, AJ Suited Racing Stable, and trainer Brian Lynch, Power Alert notched his third turf sprint victory of the season May 1 at Churchill Downs when he led at every call to win the $150,000 Twin Spires Turf Sprint Stakes (gr. IIIT). The 5-year-old Australian-bred son of Alert set a course record in that race, completing five furlongs in :55.17, and nailed down his first graded stakes win.

Power Alert started his racing career in Australia but has found success in U.S. turf sprints since his December debut here when he won a five-furlong allowance race on the Gulfstream Park grass. He would follow with a victory in the Silks Run Stakes there, also at five furlongs on the Gulfstream turf. 

In Saturday evening's Evangeline Downs Turf Sprint, Power Alert is scheduled to break from the inside with regular rider Julien Leparoux in a field of eight 3-year-olds and older going five furlongs on the grass. The field includes Louisiana-bred Heitai, who won last year's edition of the Evangeline Downs Turf Sprint.

Rowell Enterprises' Heitai, a 5-year-old Fusaichi Pegasus   gelding, enters off an eighth-place finish in the Twin Spires Turf Sprint. That finish snapped a three-race win streak for Heitai, who had finished first or second in 11 straight races before that off-the-board result on the Churchill turf. Heitai has won 14 of 30 starts, with 11 placings and earnings of $921,043.

The Evangeline Downs Turf Sprint is one of stakes on Saturday's card. The other stakes include:

• The $100,000 Opelousas Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile turf race for fillies and mares, in which Kelly Stephens and Frank Nieschwietz's Satin Gold will try for the second stakes win of her career. The 5-year-old English Channel   mare enters off a third place finish in a May 2 allowance race on the Lone Star Park turf

• The $100,000 Evangeline Mile Stakes, for 3-year-olds and older on the main track, where Jed Cohen's speedy Mystery Train, a group I winner in Argentina, will try to secure his first U.S. victory as he makes his sixth start since being imported.

• The $70,000 Lafayette Stakes, a seven-furlong sprint for Louisiana-bred 3-year-olds, where Nolan Creek Farm's Mystery Gate, a son of Lydgate who has won two of his first five career starts, will try to notch his first stakes win.

• The $70,000 Acadiana Stakes, a seven-furlong spring for Louisiana-bred 3-year-old fillies, where Darlene Peterson's Persuade Me Lady, by Lydgate, will try to extend her victory streak to three and grab her first career stakes win.