Irish-born jockey James Graham,
a wintertime resident of New Orleans, has been on a roll of late and he’s off to a fast start once again this season during the
140th meeting at Fair Grounds.
The ebullient 32-year-old native of Finglas,
Dublin, won the opening race of Fair Grounds’ 2011-2012 84-day meeting on Thanksgiving Day aboard Robert and Lawana Low’s
Southern Rocket for trainer Steve Margolis. Later that day he captured the holiday’s $60,000
Mr. Sulu Stakes on Klaravich Stables and William Lawrence’s
Populist Politics for New Orleans-born conditioner
Tom Amoss.
On the first Saturday of the session, Graham won the grassy $75,000
Pago Hop Stakes astride James Miller’s
Daisy Devine, the versatile daughter of Kafwain who won last spring’s
Grade II Fair Grounds Oaks on the main track for Irish-born trainer
Andrew McKeever. Earlier in the afternoon Graham used his considerable strength to get Andrews T & S Racing’s tiring
Mr. Vegas home in front for trainer
Richie Scherer.
However, it was last summer in Chicago that Graham won his first riding title in the United States at
Arlington Park after finishing second twice previously at Arlington and three times at Fair Grounds.
“A
riding title is nice to have,” said Graham Sunday morning during Fair
Grounds training hours. “It’s like you’ve accomplished something after
finishing second or third so many times, but I couldn’t have done it
without my agent (Britt McGehee) or my wife (the former
Lisa Caverley, also born on
the Emerald Isle) and all the trainers that have helped me out. I
suppose it’s kind of nice to have a title on your resume, but I don’t
think very much about riding crowns.
“This
job we (jockeys) have is hard enough, but I enjoy it,” said Graham.
“This is a great game. Everyone is busy doing what they have to do
to make a living and I’ve been fortunate enough to carve out one for
myself. (Multiple Kentucky Derby winning jockey)
Calvin Borel told me a long time ago to just keep doing what I do and to work as hard as I can, but to me it doesn’t really seem like work.”
Typically,
Graham, who also finished a very good second at Keeneland’s prestigious
October meeting, refuses to speculate on his chances for
his first Fair Grounds riding crown after finishing second three times.
“It’s
only the fourth day of the season and a lot of things can happen.”
Graham said. “This has already been a good day for me. I got up this
morning and put my feet on the floor, so from there, there’s only one
way you can go – and that’s forward.”
FG’S INAUGURAL ‘LEGENDS PURSE’ PERMEATES PAST OF CRESCENT CITY RACING – Hall of Fame Thoroughbreds like
Black Gold, Pan Zareta, and Whirlaway –
all of whom raced in New Orleans – were represented, but it was the locally-owned
Risen Star whose silks flew home first in Fair Grounds’ inaugural
Legends Purse, run as the sixth race Saturday at the nation’s third-oldest Thoroughbred race course.
In that race,
Louisiana-bred Deelightful Angel –
playing the part of the 1988
Louisiana Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes winner
Risen Star owned by Louie
Roussel III and Ronnie Lamarque – won by 6 1/4-lengths in a
one-mile-and-70-yard $10,000 claiming contest for Louisiana-breds. Every
entrant in the 12-horse field was dressed in the silks
of a different legendary horse from Fair Grounds’ 140-year history.
Louisiana Derby, Preakness and New Orleans Handicap winner
Master Derby, played by Kasos Pride, finished second and the favored
Whirlaway, the 1941 Triple Crown winner, represented by
Gold Soul, came in third.
That
meant, at least in symbolic terms, that the Legends Purse resulted in
an all-Louisiana Derby-Preakness-winner exacta as well as an
all-Preakness-winner
trifecta.
Track announcer
John G. Dooley and Fair Grounds racing analyst
Katie Mikolay were quick to
embrace the spirit of the Legends Purse, with Dooley threading his
live-race call with historic anecdotes from the various legends’ history
and Mikolay specifically noting the original
racing colors of Louie Roussel and the famous devil’s-red-and-blue of
Calumet Farm during her pre-race comments from the paddock.
However, perhaps the defining moment of the Legends Purse came during the post parade, when Cajun Louisiana-born jockey
Kerwin Clark, 52, – aboard “Whirlaway” on Saturday – pumped his fist in the air as Dooley described the stellar career of the
Calumet color-bearer over the public address system.
“It was hard not to be impressed when the announcer recited all of Whirlaway’s history,”
Clark said Sunday morning. “I guess I just got into the spirit of the whole thing.”
Clark, it should be noted, rode Just for Fun Stable’s
Decisive Moment in last spring’s Kentucky Derby, enjoying the first Kentucky Derby mount of his 36-year career in the saddle.