Barn Notes

December 21, 2007 --

Headlines for Friday, December 21, 2007

· Canada’s Champion Trainer Casse Comes to Fair Grounds

· FG Ready for Training Friday Following Deluge

· Pulaski County Runs Again Saturday for Celebrity-Centered Ownership

· Monday Racing Begins Christmas Eve

· Fair Grounds Family Days Back in Action

 

Canada’s Champion Trainer Casse Comes to Fair Grounds

NEW ORLEANS, La. – Conditioner Mark Casse, who accepted his second straight Sovereign Award as Canada’s champion trainer in Toronto ceremonies Dec. 14, will enjoy the holidays with friends and family in Ocala, Fla., before making his initial visit to New Orleans to oversee his Fair Grounds string.

Casse, 46, has a division of his horses locally for the first time this season. He has his Fair Grounds contingent under the day-by-day care of his son Norman, 24, but will periodically be seen on the Fair Grounds backstretch throughout the winter.

Casse, owner Eugene Melnyk and jockey Patrick Husbands complete a troika of Canadian champion horsemen who will be regularly represented in New Orleans this winter following their recently announced 2007 Sovereign Awards – Canada’s version of Thoroughbred racing’s Eclipse Awards.

“It was exciting to win (a Sovereign Award) again,” said Casse, “but I was more excited to see him (primary patron Melnyk) win his Sovereign Award this year because he finished second last year.

“Also, we were both very pleased to see (Melnyk-owned and Casse-trained) Sealy Hill win Canada’s Horse of the Year honors,” Casse added.

Casse won 84 races at Woodbine, 24 more than the runner-up trainer, and also captured 13 stakes events including a pair of graded events.

Melnyk (in whose silks Sterwins captured Fair Grounds’ $60,000 Buddy Diliberto Memorial Handicap Dec. 15) won 15 Canadian races in 2007, including six stakes, on his way to Sovereign Award owner honors.

Jockey Patrick Husbands, currently on vacation in his native Barbados, is expected to arrive at Fair Grounds in January and is slated to ride a strong contingent of Casse trainees. They include a pair of likely starters in stakes races on Louisiana Derby Preview Day Feb. 9: Miner’s Claim, an undefeated Mineshaft colt who is being pointed for the Grade III Risen Star for his 3-year-old debut, and Charles Laloggia’s Clearly Foxy, winner of her first two starts, who is targeting the Grade III Silverbulletday for her seasonal bow.

Briarwood Stable’s Miner’s Claim, by 2003’s Horse of the Year and out of a Pleasant Tap mare, won both of his Woodbine outings, while Clearly Foxy won Woodbine’s Grade III Natalma in her second start before finishing sixth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies over the sloppy going at Monmouth Oct. 27 – a race Casse was quick to discount.

“She got away bad and had to put up with the rest of the field throwing slop in her face all the way,” said Casse. “My jockey (Husbands) went out on the track with seven pair of goggles, and he was out of goggles by the half-mile pole. Still, she rallied to finish sixth, so I thought it was a very good race for her.

“I also train Turf War,” said Casse, speaking of Woodford Racing LLC’s (Bill Farish’s) Dixie Union colt who dead-heated for the win in the Grade III Delta Jackpot Dec. 7. “He’s also scheduled for a Fair Grounds campaign, and I plan to race a good turf horse I have named Marchfield during the Fair Grounds meeting. He won Woodbine’s $500,000 Breeders Stakes last summer.”

 

FG Ready for Training Friday Following Deluge

Track superintendent Javier Barajas, currently on a schedule that keeps him commuting from New Orleans to Chicago’s Arlington Park, returned on a quickly arranged flight to New Orleans at 11:30 Thursday night following the cancellation of the last five Fair Grounds races Thursday afternoon.

“We floated the track until 3 o’clock in the morning and then filled the washout area with new material,” said Barajas Friday. “We also reconfigured the chute somewhat, but I have to give the credit to the crew for doing a great job. We had the track ready to go in time for training hours (Friday) morning.”

Barajas, 45, born in Tamulipais, Mexico, but raised in Chicago where his father was turf foreman at Arlington, began his career as an hourly employee at the Chicago oval.

“I was paid $2.50 an hour and I still have my first paycheck signed by Bill Thayer,” said Barajas, referring to Arlington’s revered senior executive. “I started working for John Passero in 1976, before he went to the NYRA, and I’ve been working at Arlington ever since.”

Barajas was named track superintendent at Arlington in 1997, and was also responsible for the installation of Arlington’s Polytrack course which debuted last summer in Chicago.

 

Pulaski County Runs Again Saturday for Celebrity Centered Ownership

New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees has been playing superbly while resurrecting his team’s slow start to the season and will attempt to keep them in playoff contention this Sunday when the Saints play the Philadelphia Eagles in the Superdome.

However, on Saturday Brees is a likely attendee at Fair Grounds to watch Last Mango Racing Stable LLC’s Pulaski County try to rebound from his own troubled local beginning on opening day in New Orleans.

As part of Last Mango’s celebrity-studded ownership team – also including singer Jimmy Buffett, Saints coach Sean Payton, general manager Mickey Loomis and other members of the Saints staff – Brees could provide the needed winning karma to help Pulaski County reach the winner’s circle for the first time in his seventh career start.

Nine-time Fair Grounds leading trainer Tom Amoss, conditioner of Pulaski County, was encouraged by gray colt’s gutsy performance Nov. 22 despite the troubled trip.

“Hopefully, we will be able to have a lot of fun with him (Pulaski County) this season,” said Amoss following Pulaski County’s Nov. 22 performance, when the colt continued willingly late to finish third.

 

Monday Racing Begins Christmas Eve

Fair Grounds begins nine consecutive Mondays of racing on Christmas Eve with a 10-race card – making the track one of only three Thoroughbred circuits to offer a live Christmas Eve program.

The feature on Monday is the $60,000 Woodchopper Stakes on the turf. Heiligbrodt Racing Stable’s Inca King, winner of last month’s Commonwealth Turf at Churchill Downs, is the likely favorite in the field of a half-dozen 3-year-olds. On New Year’s Eve, the two divisions of the Louisiana Futurity will be contested.

Monday racing continues at Fair Grounds through Feb. 18.

 

Fair Grounds Family Days Back in Action

The first of six Sunday Family Days at Fair Grounds this season got underway last weekend with a Winter Wonderland theme highlighted by children having the opportunity to get their pictures taken with Santa Claus.

“I got my picture taken with Santa, but I also got to ride the biggest pony they had several times,” said 7-year-old Eric Etheredge, a New Orleans native who has enjoyed Fair Grounds Family Days in previous seasons. “I also got to pet some horses and do flips in the Space Walk.”

The next Family Day at Fair Grounds, scheduled for Jan. 6, involves a Western Rodeo theme.

Other Family Days – which run from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and are held on the west end of the apron – are scheduled for Jan. 20 (Mardi Gras Madness), Feb. 10 (South of the Border), Feb. 24 (Caribbean Pirate Party) and March 16 (Easter Bunny Comes to Town).