Texas Racing Notes
From Mrs. Tittle

Letters from Mrs. Jill Tittle


Fri, 11 April 1997

Hi Al,

Well, things move at a high rate of speed around here lately--including the entrants for the Lone Star Derby and the Texas Mile on Sunday April 20th at Lone Star Park.

In a series of negotiations, Lone Star Park raised the purse for the Texas Mile from $100,000 to $250,000. The purse increase was enough to lure Carolyn and Sonny Hine to enter champion 3yo of last year, Skip Away. Hearing the Skip Away would be coming to Texas, Bob Baffert promptly chartered a plane for Isitingood and Semoran for the Mile, as well as Anet for the Lone Star Derby. Baffert nearly changed his plans when he heard that Skip Away would be carrying a minimal #116. The conditions of the race are such that any horse which has not won a race this year gets the same #116. Lone Star felt they could not change the conditions for one horse without setting a bad precedent, and Baffert, sportsman that he is, decided to bring his horses anyhow. I think he feels Texas racing in general and LSP in particular deserve the horses to make this race go.

Other possible starters for the Lone Star Derby are Frisk Me Now, and the Mandella trained Holzmeister. These races will be televised on ESPN Sunday April 20th at 5-6pm CDT.

All reserved seating for the entire opening weekend sold out promptly. Attendance is estimated to be 40,000+. Those of you at simulcasting facilites likely will get to watch the LSP races as well, as the LSP signal will be going out to 200 some odd outlets. Not bad, eh?

Last night, Roger and I were lucky enough to get the grand tour of LSP, thanks to Mindy Hutchison LS's simulcasting coordinator. Lone Star is a gorgeous facility, and we should all be proud to have it here. The layout is beautiful, and it is apparent alot of thought went into the design. In addition, the staff, from the management on down, is very pleasant. Thank you, Lone Star, and Mindy.

I plan on being at LS opening weekend, so anyone out there planning to go, let me know!! Those of you not coming opening weekend, please plan to attend at some point. You wouldn't want to miss this place, I assure you. If you are not able to come to LS, be sure to watch all the action on ESPN.

Hope to see you all there.

Jill

Jill Tittle

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Life is not a spectator sport
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