GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - If the Breeders’ Cup World Thoroughbred Championships is the biggest day in horse racing, isn’t it fitting that the event should be held in Texas?

Everything is big in the Lone Star State!

Bill Parcells is big. Lyle Lovett is big. Dirk Nowitzki is big. The Ewing family used to be big. Lots of women have big hair. When you sit down at a splashy restaurant, the waiter will serve you a big steak.

Now that I have visited Lone Star Park, I can tell you first-hand that this edition of the Breeders’ Cup will be big as well.

“The Dallas-Fort Worth area is a sports and entertainment market that embraces the big event,” said Darren Rogers, director of communications for Lone Star. “When we announced the sale of tickets for the Breeders’ Cup, we were overwhelmed by the response. We sold out immediately. That has allowed us to worry more about the comfort of our customers that day than getting them into the park.”

Located 12 miles west of Dallas and 20 miles east of Fort Worth, Lone Star Park is an ideal location to draw from a base of sports fans that have supported the NHL's Stars, the NBA's Mavs, baseball's Rangers and of course their beloved ’Boys of the NFL, the team that dominates the marketplace.

But racing has found its own niche deep in the heart of Texas. With a first-class simulcast facility on the well-groomed grounds, the Lone Star management has developed a product that has worked well enough to draw an event worthy of the magnitude of the Breeders’ Cup.

The venue itself is not as beautiful as Santa Anita, as big as Belmont Park or as historic as Churchill Downs. Sizewise, Lone Star has a Gulfstream Park or Del Mar feel to it -- and it will be interesting to see if the 51,000 fans that will pour into the track on Breeders’ Cup Day will not only be physically comfortable but be able to get a wager through the betting windows without undue hassle. There will be no general admission that day. Everybody will have a ticket and a seat location.

“We’ve installed 39,000 temporary seats for the event,” Rogers said, “and they are not a number on an uncomfortable bench, either. These are individual chair back seats that stand on the track apron, somewhat similar to what Arlington Park did when they hosted the Cup. We’ve also added mutuel windows, restaurants and concession stands as part of a three-phase, $8.5 million dollar capital-improvement plan all with the Breeders’ Cup in mind.”

Handicappers unfamiliar with the nuances of the one-mile dirt main track or the 7/8^th-mile turf course will be scrambling for tips that could help them uncover a winner on Cup day. Wise-guy bettors indicated to me that the turf course (a Santa Anita look-alike) has a profound bias toward closing, stretch runners and is murder on pace-setters. The main track plays fair, unless the weather is unusually hot and humid, when speed is king and the times are very fast. In late October however, the Dallas weather is usually at its most comfortable, with temperatures ranging from 55 to 70 degrees.

Over the years, I have found an extra zip in the air when the Cup has visited first-time venues like Woodbine in Toronto or Arlington outside Chicago. The buzz around Lone Star seems to be in lock step. Given the pride that Texans have in their state and with their sports, I would be very surprised if Lone Star fails to throw a great show Oct. 30.

This Breeders’ Cup is a big event, you know.

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