HOUSTON - Trainer Jack Bruner has seen a different side of Most Feared since the horse arrived at Sam Houston Race Park to prepare for Saturday night's $100,000 Star of Texas Stakes.

The 1 1/16-mile race for 3-year-olds and up is one of eight stakes on the annual Texas Champions Day program, worth a cumulative $550,000. All of the races except the $150,000 Sam Houston Texan Juvenile are restricted to Texas-breds.

The enthusiasm Most Feared has shown in his training has Bruner looking forward to the Star of Texas, which also drew defending champ Rare Cure, Agrivating General, Desert Darby, and Crook.

"Since he's gotten to Houston, he acts like he really likes the surface here," said Bruner, who trains Most Feared for owner-breeder Tom Durant. "He's breezing really well. He's even thrown a bullet work, which is kind of unusual."

Most Feared, who won the Grade 3 Arlington-Washington Futurity last year at 2, is looking for his first win of the year. He finished a big second to Dynever in the Grade 3, $500,000 Lone Star Derby in May, but was sidelined with sore feet after that race and did not run again until September.

In his return, Most Feared finished second in a seven-furlong division of the Texas Stallion Stakes. He will return to his best trip, two turns, on Saturday.

"I'm looking forward to it," Bruner said of stretching Most Feared out in distance. Kerwin Clark will ride.

The chief threat to Most Feared could be Agrivating General, who returns to the main track after placing second in two turf stakes in his last two starts. The surface switch is a non-issue, trainer Danny Pish said.

"I don't think it matters," he said.

Pish said he is pleased with how Agrivating General has prepared for the race.

"He's eating well and is carrying his weight better than he has in the past," he said. "He's always been a horse that has trained aggressively, and sometimes he would knock too much weight off of himself. So all in all, I give him the thumbs up."

Jeremy Collier has the mount.