Defending Fair Grounds jockey champion Rosie Napravnik
took off her mounts for the second consecutive race day Wednesday, but should be accepting mounts Friday, according to her agent
Derek Ducoing.
“She’s still a little sore,” Ducoing said Wednesday, “but I expect her to be back to riding by Friday.”
Napravnik,
who sprained both her ankles and incurred a deep bone bruise on one leg
Jan. 8 when thrown from a mount while going onto the turf
course, had been accepting mounts through last Saturday (including her
win on Brereton Jones’
Believe You Can in that day’s $125,000 Silverbulletday Stakes) before deciding to give herself some time off as of last Sunday’s program.
Through
last Sunday, halfway point of Fair Grounds’ 2011-2012 season, Napravnik
led the local standing with 58 wins, 12 more than jockey
James Graham, the clear runner-up at the current session. She was scheduled to ride in five of Thursday’s races.
PANTS ON FIRE SIZZLES SUNDAY IN SOUTH FLORIDA
George and Lori Hall’s Pants On Fire,
heroine of last year’s $1 million Louisiana Derby March 26, breezed a bullet five furlongs in 59.55 at
South Florida’s Palm Meadows training center Sunday morning.
The Jump Start colt, runner-up in last year’s
Grade III Lecomte Stakes at Fair Grounds, has not raced since finishing fifth in Monmouth’s
Grade I Haskell Invitational July 31.
Twin Creeks Racing Stables’
Mission Impazible, winner of the
Grade II Louisiana Derby two years ago and a horse who returned to Fair Grounds to win the
Grade II New Orleans Handicap last season, also went five-eighths last Sunday at Palm Meadows, getting that same distance 1:01.90.
James Miller’s
Daisy Devine, winner of last season’s
Grade II Fair Grounds Oaks March 26, went a half-mile Monday at Fair Grounds in 49.40, while Zayat Stable’s
Nehro, runner-up to Pants On Fire in last year’s Louisiana Derby, Arkansas
Derby and Kentucky Derby, breezed four furlongs at Fair Grounds Tuesday, accomplishing the move in 51.20.
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