Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Earlier start date to kick off meet
Winter in New Orleans means Mardi Gras season. It means cold spells where the air’s deep dampness makes 30 degrees feel Arctic. And it also usually means a very fast filly stabled on the Fair Grounds backstretch. Last year it was Monomoy Girl, who came out of the Fair Grounds to win the Kentucky Oaks. That has happened three times the last five years, four times in the last seven, and six of 11.
There’s a good chance another filly will rise again this winter during an 81-day Fair Grounds meet that starts Thursday. But hit pause on the emergence of hot prospects. The cream of the Midwest crop resides at Churchill Downs until the meet there ends in late November, and these early days of a long New Orleans season typically feature more pedestrian, local fare.
And there are more early days this Fair Grounds meet than ever before. A season that once had a traditional Thanksgiving opener now starts in mid-November and wraps up a week earlier than usual. In 2019, closing day is March 24, the day after the season’s most important program featuring the $1 million Louisiana Derby. The local derby, despite its massive purse, hasn’t turned up key Triple Crown prospects in recent years. The $400,000 Fair Grounds Oaks on the same card, however, has yielded a host of top fillies, though Monomoy Girl made her final Fair Grounds start last winter in the Rachel Alexandra Stakes in mid-February.
Fair Grounds long has clustered more important stakes around big days and in addition to the March 23 card, the major racing programs this meet are Louisiana Derby Preview Day on Feb. 16 and Road to the Derby Kickoff Day on Jan. 19.
Fair Grounds bumped up the bottom of its stakes schedule by turning 10 $50,000 overnight stakes into $75,000 races.
The early cards go heavy on Louisiana-breds and lowerlevel claimers, but connections with that sort of stock were eager to jump into the pool – 98 horses are entered in nine races opening day. Racing secretary Scott Jones said this past weekend there were about 1,250 horses on the backstretch with 350 to 400 yet to arrive from Churchill.
The closing of the Evangeline Downs Training Center this past summer could affect entries this season. Several large Fair Grounds stables ran strings at the training center in Opelousas, La., a fairly easy ship to New Orleans, but many horses that would’ve been housed there now are a couple of hours farther west at Louisiana Downs. Some trainers – such as Mike Stidham and Joe Sharp – have taken stalls at the Folsom Training Center across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans to house their Fair Grounds overflow.
There was enthusiasm this year over the arrival of several outfits new to the meet but nothing much came of that in the end. Jones said the stables are filled mainly with Fair Grounds stalwarts, and that there are 120 trainers with stalls this meet compared with 110 during the 2017-18 meet, and that a greater number of smaller outfits can help fill races. Fair Grounds averaged 8.3 starters per race last season.
“We should have a pretty good meet,” Jones said. “We still have lower-class horses, just like everywhere, but we had a lot of good races go last year that haven’t gone in the past.”
The departure of trainer Ken McPeek, who will have all his stock in Florida this winter, won’t help higher-end allowance races fill. New trainers with stalls include Norm Casse and John Ortiz.
Brian Hernandez Jr. has left his regular winter quarters in New Orleans to ride at Gulfstream, but Hernandez rode only 29 winners last season and all the top jockeys return. Joe Bravo, who wintered in New Orleans for the first time last season and rode first call for Stidham, already is on the grounds. So is Adam Beschizza, the English import who came within one win of Shaun Bridgmohan and the 2017-18 riding title a year ago.
Post time Thursday and for all standard cards is 12:30 p.m. Central. Four cards with a 5 p.m. start are scattered throughout the meet, while the standard race week runs Thursday through Sunday. The capable local racing office must fill five cards during a race week only three times this season.
If the opening-day feature, the $50,000 Tom Benson Stakes, has any relation to the whole season’s trajectory, Fair Grounds is in good shape. The Benson, carded at one mile on turf for older Louisiana-bred fillies and mares, drew a very competitive, 12-horse field. The race holds plenty of betting options, but the selection, despite a poor outside draw, is Bermuda Star.
Four-year-old Bermuda Star raced on dirt in 10 of her first 12 starts but has found a home on grass during the latter portion of this year for trainer Victor Arcenaux and Evelyn Benoit’s Brittlyn Stable. She won three times on grass this summer, including twice in stakes competition, and enters the Benson a fresh horse after a sixweek break.