Supermason tuned up for Assault

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – Talk about liking Lone Star Park.

Supermason has won eight races over its main track and another over the local turf, and looks to add to his record Sunday in the $50,000 Assault Stakes.

“He’s been a really fun horse,” said Bret Calhoun, who trains Supermason for Brad Grady.

The Assault is a main-track race at a mile and is restricted to 3-year-olds and up bred in Texas. It is the first leg of an all-stakes pick four that will have a minimum guaranteed pool of $50,000. The sequence, which begins in the seventh race, includes two $100,000 divisions of the Texas Thoroughbred Futurity and the $50,000 Valor Farm Stakes.

Supermason is a 6-year-old son of Grasshopper who has compiled a record of 12 wins from 34 starts for earnings of $378,125. His six stakes wins include three consecutive runnings of the Premiere on opening night at Lone Star and the 2016 edition of the Assault.

Supermason, who was second to multiple graded stakes winner Texas Chrome in last year’s Assault, enters Sunday’s race off back-to-back sprint wins in the $50,000 Blue Bonnet – the former Premiere – and an allowance June 21.

“You know, he gets to run a couple of times during the meet, starts opening weekend with the sprint and ends with the mile race,” Calhoun said. “I think he fits very well with that group. He has over the past years, and he just continues to be very consistent. Actually, he may be a little bit better this year just because mentally he seems to have figured things out a little more.”

Calhoun noted the quick Supermason is starting to show more versatility. He sat off the pace in both of his wins this meet at Lone Star.

Lindey Wade has the mount from post 5.

Also set to start in the Assault is Rumpole, a threetime stakes winner who was second in the Blue Bonnet and third in the same allowance last month as Supermason.

Zippit E moves back to both the main track and one turn in the Valor Farm for fillies and mares at six furlongs. She won the $50,000 Lane’s End Danny Shifflett Scholarship Stakes by a neck June 23 at Lone Star.

“It was a gutty performance last time,” Calhoun said. “She took a tremendous amount of heat, pressure and held them off.”

As for the move back to dirt, Calhoun noted that three of Zippit E’s four stakes wins have come in main-track sprints.

“She’s proven to be such a versatile filly for us,” he said.