Lone Star Park: Spot plays for Texas Champions Day

Sunday is Texas Champions Day at Lone Star Park, so the afternoon agenda includes seven stakes  — worth a combined $525,000 — for Texas-breds.

We’ll focus our handicapping attention on the middle of the card and play a pair of back-to-back stakes races on a $75 budget.

Race 5: Richard King Turf S. (6:07 p.m. ET)

#7 Redatory (7-5 on the morning line) has beaten all eight of the rivals he’ll face in this 1 1/8-mile turf test.

The grass-loving son of Oratory dominated the 1-mile Assault S. at Lone Star last summer and enters off an easy, 4 1/4-length romp in the Feb. 22 Houston Turf S.

Redatory’s combination of tactical speed and finishing power makes him tough to beat, and a bullet 5-furlong workout June 3 at Lone Star suggests he is fit and ready for a fine effort off the layoff.

In a race that contains very little speed, the frontrunning #1 Sunlit Song (2-1) is an obvious choice to shake loose on the front end and hang around to finish in the exacta.

We’ll key Redatory on all our tickets, including a double with #2 Gold Pilot in Race 6, and use Sunlit Song underneath in an exacta:

$20 to win on #7 Redatory
$10 exacta: 7 with 1
$10 double: 7 with 2
Total: $40

Race 6: Groovy S. (6:39 p.m. ET)

In contrast to the Richard King Turf S., there is plenty of speed entered in this 6-furlong dash for 3-year-olds. This should play to the strengths of #2 Gold Pilot (2-1), who rallied from off the pace to dominate the 6-furlong Jim’s Orbit S. at Sam Houston by 2 3/4 lengths. That impressive performance produced an 89 Brisnet Speed rating, one of the highest in Sunday’s field.

Conditioned by high-percentage trainer Bret Calhoun, Gold Pilot is 2-for-2 this season and will pick up hot jockey David Cabrera, a 23% winner at Lone Star this meet.

Though he hasn’t run since Feb. 22, Gold Pilot has been training forwardly for his return and will be tough to deny if he keeps progressing the way he did during the winter.

#6 Good Judgment (5-2) and #9 Bubba Bling (7-2), who finished second and third in the Jim’s Orbit, are logical candidates to round out the exotics. #8 Moro Said Ready (12-1), a winner of two sprint stakes as a juvenile at Lone Star, could also be a factor in his first run of the season. We’ll use all three underneath Gold Pilot in the trifecta.

$20 to win on #2 Gold Pilot
$2.50 trifecta: 2 with 6,8,9 with 6,8,9 ($15)
Total: $35

Good luck!