Magic Dance hits reset button

Fair Grounds packs many of its best races on multi-stakes Saturday racing programs, but the first Sunday card of 2021 is rife with allowance races.

The nine-race program includes four races with allowance conditions headed by race 7, a second-level allowance with a $40,000 claiming option carded for six furlongs on dirt and restricted to older fillies and mares.

On paper, at least, this is a hyper-competitive contest as four of the nine entrants exit winning performances and several others have shown ability plenty sufficient to contend.

She Can’t Sing is among the quartet of last-out winners, finally breaking through with a second career win while making her 14th start. A handicapping rule of thumb calls for casting a cold eye on shorterpriced horses coming off a win and stepping up the allowance ladder, but She’s Can’t Sing doesn’t fit neatly in that box. While the Nov. 27 victory did yield a career-best 86 Beyer Speed Figure, She Can’t Sing came to that performance after a series of competitive showings, many against competition comparable to what she meets Sunday.

Trained by Chris Block for Lothenbach Stables, She Can’t Sing still was being campaigned as a route horse when she finished fifth and seventh in a pair of Fair Grounds starts last winter, and she likely will do better than that Sunday.

Lady of Luxury is doubled in price, a positive sign, to race under the claiming option after being claimed out of a Fair Grounds win for $20,000. Specially and Bye Bye Bertie go turf to dirt and should be better for the surface switch. Lady Shaman has started her career with two wins; both, however, came last winter at Sam Houston. Charming Lady scored an encouraging debut win just less than a year ago at Fair Grounds but seven starts later has improved only marginally. Zanadu and Sassy Seneca should provide the primary pace.

That leaves Magic Dance as the top selection – albeit a somewhat dicey one. Magic Dance ranked among the faster mid-summer 2-year-old fillies of 2019 but had a lost 2020, failing to handle a route distance at Oaklawn in February and finishing a distant seventh June 6 in the Dogwood Stakes, her most recent start. Sunday marks another reset for this filly, and Magic Dance has put together an airtight Fair Grounds work pattern for trainer Steve Asmussen.

Race 4 is a nonwinners-oftwo turf-mile allowance with a $50,000 claiming option that’s restricted to 3-year-olds and figures to have Royal Prince as a strong favorite. Royal Prince broke from post 10 and raced wide when sent to California for the Grade 3 Cecil B. DeMille Stakes on Nov. 29, and while he finished seventh, Royal Prince was beaten only a little more than three lengths. He races on Lasix for the first time and ran more than well enough in Kentucky last fall to beat this bunch.

Excess Magic, who overcame two spots of trouble to crush a soft field of Remington turf maidens last out, could be the race’s value.