Barn Notes
RTTD Kickoff Day Features 5 Riders in All 6 Stakes
FAIR GROUNDS BARN NOTES
Headlines for Friday, January 11, 2008
· RTTD Kickoff Day Features 5 Riders in All 6 Stakes
· Trainer Stidham Nears 1,000-Career Win Milestone
· Sovereign Award-Winning Jockey Husbands Hanging His Tack Here
· Sexagenarian in the Saddle – Brown Delivers Again This Year
· Fires Continues Fair Grounds-Oaklawn Commute
RTTD Kickoff Day Features 5 Riders in All 6 Stakes
NEW ORLEANS, La. – Fair Grounds offers an All-Stakes Pick 6 for Saturday’s six $100,000 races on “Road to the Derby” Kickoff Day, and five jockeys have mounts in all six of those stakes.
They include Robby Albarado, six-time leading rider at Fair Grounds and an Eclipse Award finalist this year; Jamie Theriot, current leader in the Fair Grounds standings; Julien Leparoux, the nation’s Eclipse Award-winning apprentice jockey in 2006 who dominated the Kentucky circuit last year; James Graham, former leading apprentice at Fair Grounds as well as a former runner-up in the local standings; and Miguel Mena, new to the Fair Grounds season this year but with riding titles at Turfway, Ellis Park and Presque Isle Downs.
Obviously, the least known of these locally and nationally is Mena, a 21-year-old native of Peru who grew up idolizing Edgar Prado and came to the United States to ride as an apprentice at Arlington during the summer of 2005. A move to the Kentucky circuit the following summer led to his first title at Ellis Park, and then another one at Turfway that fall. Last summer, with the opening of Presque Isle Downs in Erie, Pa., he landed a third title. The youngster has maintained his momentum at Fair Grounds by firmly maintaining a position among the top five local jockeys although he is hanging his tack in New Orleans for the first time.
Trainer Stidham Nears 1,000-Career Win Milestone
No trainer will saddle horses in all six of Saturday’s $100,000 stakes, but Fair Grounds leading trainer Steve Asmussen has representatives in five of the six, while conditioner Mike Stidham is represented in four.
Going into Friday’s Fair Grounds races, Stidham had 993 career wins, and could make considerable inroads toward the 1,000-win milestone with a solid Saturday afternoon. Stidham has five horses entered on Saturday’s 11-race program, but all four of his stakes horses are worthy of interest.
In the Grade III Lecomte, one of two local preps for the Grade II Louisiana Derby March 8, Stidham will be represented by Stonerside Stable LLC’s Texas Fever, a horse who has never run over a traditional dirt track but won the Grade III Kentucky Cup Juvenile at Turfway over Polytrack last Sept. 29. Texas Fever was sixth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf over the yielding grass at Monmouth in his last start Oct. 26.
Although four of his five trips to the post came over Polytrack and the other on grass, Stidham points out that the 3-year-old son of 1998 Belmont Stakes and Arkansas Derby winner Victory Gallop has worked exceedingly well over the Fair Grounds surface, posting bullet breezes in his last three works.
In Saturday’s Tiffany Lass, for 3-year-old fillies, Stidham will saddle Stonerside’s Tizaqueena, a beautifully balanced daughter of two-time Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Tiznow. Tizaqueena scored impressively by 5 1/4 lengths here in her career debut Dec. 2.
In Saturday’s 62nd running of the Louisiana Handicap, Stidham will send out Feel The Thunder Stable’s Sandburr, who captured last year’s renewal of the 1 1/16-mile race for older horses and is coming off a 1 3/4-length win in Sam Houston’s Star of Texas Stakes Dec. 1.
Finally, in the Grade III Col. E.R. Bradley Handicap Saturday, at about 1 1/16-miles over Fair Grounds’ Stall-Wilson turf course, Stidham will be represented by the French-bred Gold Sound, also coming off a stakes win at Sam Houston in the Buffalo Bayou Stakes Dec. 8. It was only his second American start.
Sovereign Award-Winning Jockey Husbands Hanging His Tack Here
Veteran Canadian champion jockey Patrick Husbands accepted his fifth Sovereign Award – Canada’s equivalent of the Eclipse Awards – on Dec. 14 in Toronto ceremonies.
Earlier this week, Husbands arrived in New Orleans, and will ride at Fair Grounds throughout the season. Although, he flew in to ride one horse at Fair Grounds six years ago, and another four years ago, this will be the first time Husbands has campaigned in New Orleans on a regular basis.
Husbands, a 34-year-old native of Barbados, arrived too late to be aboard mounts in any of Saturday’s “Road to the Derby” Kickoff Day stakes, but he is already likely for two mounts on Louisiana Derby Preview Day Feb. 9. That’s the next multi-stakes showcase afternoon at Fair Grounds this season.
After the Lecomte, 3-year-olds point to the Grade III Risen Star Stakes Feb. 9, and in the Risen Star Husbands is likely to ride Woodford Racing LLC’s Briarwood Circle for trainer Mark Casse. That sophomore son of Smart Strike missed by a nose when second in Woodbine’s $125,000 Display Stakes Nov. 24, and was also runner-up in Woodbine’s Grade III Summer Stakes Sept. 16.
In the Grade III Silverbulletday Stakes Feb. 9, and Husbands is likely to have the mount on Charles Laloggia’s Clearly Foxy, again for Casse, who has been Canada’s Sovereign Award-winning trainer the last two years. Clearly Foxy finished sixth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Oct. 27, but was far back early and had mud thrown in her face the entire trip. Before that she was easily best in Woodbine’s Grade III Natalma Sept. 9.
Canadian agent Gary Kemplen is handling Husbands’ engagements.
Sexagenarian in the Saddle – Brown Delivers Again This Year
Jockey Martin Brown, at the age of 63, has brought in the New Year to The Big Easy with a bang once again in 2008.
This year, on Fair Grounds’ second racing day of 2008, the elder statesman of the local colony scored astride Dorcheat Captain, and the gelding returned a whoppping $89.20 straight mutuel.
Last season, on New Year’s Day of 2007, when Brown was a mere lad of 62, he tallied aboard Pisces Poem, and that filly paid $21.80 to win.
Pisces Poem led every step of the way when winning on Jan. 1 last season, and Dorcheat Captain made the early pace when ridden by Brown this year. However, Dorcheat Captain lost the lead in upper stretch, but came again in the final furlong to regain the advantage and be clearly best at the wire.
“When that other horse went by him in the stretch, he woke up,” said Brown of his recent unusual winning strategy. “He just didn’t jump in the bridle at first, but when the other horse went by, he got to running real good. He was flying at the end.”
Fires Continues Fair Grounds-Oaklawn Commute
Trainer Jinks Fires is back at Fair Grounds – for the second time in less than two weeks – to saddle Patricia Blass’s Prom Shoes during Saturday’s “Road to the Derby” Kickoff Day.
Although cross-entered in both the Grade III Col. E.R. Bradley Handicap over the Stall-Wilson turf course and the Louisiana Handicap on the main track, Prom Shoes will run in the Louisiana Handicap assuming the Bradley stays on the grass.
In his last trip to the post in Churchill’s Commonwealth Turf Nov. 11, Prom Shoes finished sixth, but on Nov. 2 over Louisville’s main track, the homebred colt won by three-quarters of a length despite a troubled trip.
As a native of Rivervale, Ark., Fires keeps the majority of his horses at Oaklawn, but also has a good number stabled locally and hauls his runners back and forth on a regular basis.
However, while the trainer is piling up the miles over land in the southern United States, his Marine Corps pilot son, Capt. Doug Fires, is recording the flight hours over northern Iraq.
The younger Fires, a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, shipped out to Iraq last October, where he is the leader of a Marine Corps helicopter squadron.
