Pro Oxidant comes off a corker

Irish expatriates train the most likely winners of co-featured races on a good Sunday card at Fair Grounds.

Open allowance races recently have been scarce on Fair Grounds programs, but there are three of them – races 5, 6, and 7 – among Sunday’s eight contests.

In race 5, a second-level allowance with a $50,000 claiming option, Eddie Kenneally, from County Waterford, Ireland, sends out Pro Oxidant, who will vie for favoritism with Sutherland in this six-furlong dirt dash. Kenneally, 56, came to America in 1987 as an exercise rider and opened a stable in 1997. His presence at Fair Grounds, where he is 12-3-1-2 this meet, has come and gone through the years, and Pro Oxidant is the fastest horse he’s run this season.

A lightly raced 4-year-old Medaglia d’Oro gelding, Pro Oxidant was a sharp debut winner last August before finishing fourth and fifth in a pair of first-level allowance tries. Cut back Dec. 29 to six furlongs, the shortest race of his career, Pro Oxidant delivered his top performance, running down a wellmeant rival, Underhill’s Tab, to clear the condition by 1 1/4 lengths while earning a robust 94 Beyer Speed Figure. If Pro Oxidant can repeat that kind of race, much less build upon it, he’ll be formidable, but while an outside draw helps his cause, regression remains a concern.

Sutherland, from the barn of leading trainer Bret Calhoun, might have benefited from a speed-favoring surface clearing his first allowance condition in a Dec. 4 Fair Grounds dirt sprint. He came back with a competitive second going two turns in the age-restricted Woodchopper Stakes and has worked four times for this return to sprinting.

The race’s sleeper is raildrawn Magnolia Midnight, who makes his first start since June and races for the first time as a gelding. Magnolia Midnight’s first-level sprint allowance win 13 months ago at Oaklawn Park hints at raw ability sufficient to contend here, and his work pattern for trainer Dallas Stewart holds appeal.

In race 7, a second-level allowance with a $50,000 claiming option carded for about nine furlongs on turf, Brendan Walsh, from County Cork, Ireland, sends out Rising Empire, the best bet Friday at Fair Grounds. Walsh, 39, once served as Keneally’s assistant before taking out his own trainer’s license in 2011. Walsh has five winners at the meet, and Rising Empire nearly provided a sixth, missing by a neck in a race at this class level Jan. 15.

That start marked his turf debut and was just his second race in blinkers, and after taking slightly too long to find his best stride, Rising Empire came with a late rush and just missed catching favored Straight Answer, a Juddmonte horse with talent, while finishing four lengths clear of third. Yes, Rising Empire rallied down the outside rail, getting onto the best part of a biased grass course, but he stretches out from 1 1/16 miles to 1 1/8 miles, a distance that suits him. Rain could force Sunday’s lone turf race to dirt, but Rising Empire will slot in nicely on the main track, too.