Opelousas, Louisiana –Possetothemax, one of five juvenile stakes winners by Posse, North America’s leading sire of two-year-olds in all categories, wins, stakes winners, and earnings, heads a contentious field of eleven youngsters in the traditional closing night feature, the $125,000 Lafayette Stakes at Evangeline Downs Racetrack & Casino on Labor Day, Monday, September 3.

Trained by Steve Asmussen, who is once again having a sensational season, currently leading all trainers in the nation with more than 315 wins, and trailing only last year’s Eclipse Award winner Todd Pletcher in earnings with more than $13 million, Possetothemax has already visited the winner’s circle on two occasions from four career starts including a victory in the Prairie Gold Juvenile Stakes at Iowa’s Prairie Meadows Racetrack in July. Third on a sloppy track he may not have cared for in the Middleground Breeders’ Cup Stakes at Lone Star Park in his last start, he has been installed as the 3/1 favorite in the morning-line. Curt Bourque, the leading rider at the meet, will ride the Kentucky bred for owners Heiligbrodt Racing Stable & Walter New.

Purely Class, undefeated in two starts for trainer Terry Romero, and Mikimoto’s Mojo, a highly touted son of Hold That Tiger who broke his maiden at first asking last month at Louisiana Downs for trainer Patrick Mouton, are just two of many with legitimate chances in this six furlong affair. In fact, the field is so deep that two-time stakes winner Swifty Victress is listed as the sixth choice in the morning-line at 10/1.

Also on the closing night program, Costa Rising, who established a new track record and recorded a Beyer Speed figure of 114 while winning last month’s $200,000 Evangeline Mile, looms a prohibitive favorite in the $50,000 EVD Labor Day Purse for three-year-olds and up at the distance of one mile. Costa Rising, a Louisiana Bred four-year-old colt by Royal Strand, wowed everyone who witnessed his performance and silenced his critics with his sensational win in the “Mile”. Allowed to set a moderate pace, Costa Rising accelerated when asked to run at the top of the stretch by jockey Kerwin Clark and actually ran his final quarter in 24 seconds flat on a track that was playing at least a second slower than par. He’s Royal Dee, an easy winner of the Oak Hall Stakes in his last start, along with Watchem Smokey and High Strike Zone, both multiple-stakes winners here at Evangeline Downs who have combined earnings of more than $1.1 million are capable of posting the upset on their best.

Carded as the 9th race on Monday’s twelve-race program, the approximate post time is 9:48pm central time.

Here is the field in program order with odds for the $125,000 Lafayette Stakes for two-year-olds at six furlongs to be run at Evangeline Downs on Monday, September 3, 2007.