Photo: Jim McCue/MJC
Defending Fair Grounds riding champion and current leading rider
Rosie Napravnik is three
wins shy of the 100-win mark for the current season entering Thursday’s
racing program – the 73rd racing day of an 84-day meeting.
Napravnik won last season’s local crown with
110 wins, 31 more than last season’s runner-up
Shaun Bridgmohan, who had captured Fair Grounds championship honors the previous winter.
Entering Thursday’s races, Napravnik has 97
wins, 29 more than current runner-up James Graham, who won last summer’s riding title at
Arlington
Park.
Randy
Romero holds the record for most wins at a Fair Grounds meet with
181 during the 1983-1984 stand. The last jockey aside from Napravnik to
record 100 wins at Fair Grounds was
Joe Talamo in 2006-2007 with 118.
Defending trainer champion and current leading
condition Steve Asmussen was credited with 51 wins entering Thursday’s races, 20 more than current runner-up
Tom Amoss. Asmussen has
already exceeded his local win total of last season, when he was
credited with 46 winners at the end of the meeting.
In the owner standings, Asmussen and
Maggi Moss are tied with 14 wins apiece, while former
Kentucky governor
Brereton Jones is third with 11.
TWO
LOUISIANA DERBY CANDIDATES ON MONDAY FAIR GROUNDS WORK TAB
There was no racing in the afternoon Monday at Fair Grounds, but two candidates for the upcoming
$1 million Louisiana Derby on this season’s closing day
April 1 were active over the local course Monday morning.
Zayat Stables’
Z Dager, third in Fair Grounds’
Grade II Risen Star Stakes as the designed prep for the 99th running of the Louisiana Derby but second by a head in the
Grade III Lecomte Stakes before that, went five furlongs in
1:01.80 while the track was rated fast. That move was in company with 4-year-old Grade II New Orleans Handicap candidate
Nehro.
Jerry Namy’s
Shared Property, fifth in the $300,000 Risen Star but third in the Lecomte, accomplished the same distance while the track was rated “good” in
1:02.60.
FAIR
GROUNDS HALL OF FAME INDUCTS FOUR NEW MEMBERS MARCH 10
Four new members were inducted into the
Fair Grounds Hall of Fame between races last weekend at the nation’s third oldest race course.
Trainer
Al Stall Jr., with two
trainer championships to his credit at the local oval, fourth in the
current standings and son of Fair Grounds Hall of Fame member
Al Stall, was introduced into the local Hall of Fame by trainer
Tom Amoss, a nine-time Fair Grounds trainer champion who is already among the honored members of that group.
The late National Museum of Racing and Hall
of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel
was also inducted into the local Hall Saturday, and is the only
conditioner in Fair Grounds history two capture all four of Fair
Grounds’ marquee races – the
Louisiana Derby,
Fair Grounds Oaks, New Orleans Handicap and
Mervin Muniz
Memorial Handicap.
The late
J. R. Smith Sr., trainer of
numerous Fair Grounds stakes winners but primarily known for his
sagacious claiming ability, was recalled through the memories of trainer
Wes Hawley, who once worked as Smith’s assistant and is currently eighth in the local standings.
Dorothy Brown’s
Dapper Delegate, who captured Fair Grounds’
1965 Louisiana
Derby and
Lecomte Stakes, was the lone equine inductee among this winter’s honorees.