(Grand Prairie, Texas - Friday, February 8, 2019) - Lone Star Park opens its 2019 Thoroughbred Racing Season on Thursday, April 18 for a 44-day run and has 13 stakes races on the schedule worth a combined total of over $1.1 million dollars.

The stakes action will kick-off with the featured $50,000 Bluebonnet Stakes on opening night. The six-and-one-half furlong contest on dirt is for Texas-bred fillies and mares, three years old and up.

With an added $100,000 to the purse, the now $300,000 Steve Sexton Mile (Gr. III) for three-year-olds and up headlines the 2019 stakes schedule. The 23rd edition of the event will run onSunday, April 28. Past winners include Bee Jersey (2018) and Mor Spirit (2017), both of which went on to win the $1.2 million Met Mile (Gr. I) at Belmont Park. Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert has trained winners of this event a record four times, and horses sent by Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen have won it three times.

Track officials are excited to introduce a new stakes to the line-up this year, the inaugural $100,000 Lone Star Park Turf Stakes for fillies and mares, three years old and up. It will be contested on Memorial Day, Monday, May 27.

Two dates will celebrate Texas-bred horses with four stakes each. Saturday, June 23 is Lone Star Showcase Day, featuring the divisional Texas Stallion Stakes for two-year-olds. They are the $65,000 Staunch Avenger Division for colts and geldings and the $65,000 Pan Zareta Division for fillies. Both divisions will be run at five furlongs on dirt. Also featured are the $50,000 Wayne Hanks Memorial Stakes for Texas-bred three-year-olds & upward at six-and-one-half furlongs on the main track, as well as the $50,000 Lane's End Danny Shifflett Scholarship Stakes for fillies and mares, three-year-olds and upward at seven-and-one-half furlongs on turf.

Stars of Texas Day, presented by Highlander Training Center, is Sunday, July 14 and will feature four stakes. The $50,000 Valor Farm Stakes for Texas-bred fillies and mares, three-year-olds and upward at six furlongs on dirt, the $50,000 Assault Stakes, presented by Highlander Training Center, for Texas-bred three-year-olds and upward at one mile on the turf. Also scheduled are two divisions of the Texas Thoroughbred Futurity, which are the $100,000 fillies division and the $100,000 colts and geldings division. Eligible horses are two-year-olds which are graduates of the 2019 Texas Thoroughbred Associations Two-Year-Olds-In-Training Sale and all Accredited Texas-bred horses. Each futurity division is five-and-one half furlongs on dirt.

For the complete schedule please refer to the chart below.