Photo: CDI
As Godolphin Racing updates its Alpha
board with that son of Bernardini now headed to New York for his next
start (but still not entirely out of the local picture), the field of
promising of 3-year-olds
now expected for Fair Grounds’ $1 million Louisiana Derby April 1 continues to expand while including some new very strong possibilities.
Jake Ballis’s
Cigar Street,
a dominant 13 3/4-length maiden winner earlier this month, galloped
Friday morning instead of breezing as planned due to bad weather.
Trainer Steve Margolis
said Cigar Street would now work Saturday in his first set after the
renovation break, which ends at 8:30 a.m. Margolis will not be present
for the move, as he’ll be en route to Turfway Park
in Kentucky, where his 3-year-old filly Toxis, owned by Dixiana Farms, is set to contest the Grade III Bourbonette Oaks. A decision on
Cigar Street’s status for the Grade II Louisiana Derby will be made after Margolis returns to
New Orleans.
Mike Munna Racing Stable’s
Comisky’s Humor, winner of
consecutive sprints over the Fair Grounds main track by a combined 18
lengths, will breeze Saturday morning immediately following the
renovation break. “We’re going to work and if all things
go as planned, we’ll enter” for the Louisiana Derby, trainer Ron
Faucheux said.
Casner Racing’s
Arm Force, a 3 3/4-length maiden winner and a son of two-time Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Tiznow trained by
Eoin Harty, is now almost certain to be a Louisiana Derby runner, according to Fair Grounds stakes coordinator
Scott Jones, who also expects Brereton Jones’
Mr. Bowling, trained by Larry Jones
and hero of Fair Grounds’ Jan. 21 Grade III Lecomte Stakes, to return for the final leg of the local sophomore series and be coupled with Brereton Jones’s
Mark Valeski, second by a nose in the
Grade II Risen Star Stakes here Feb. 25.
Stakes coordinator Jones is also highly optimistic that Mr. & Mrs. Larry D. Williams’
Rousing Sermon, second in Hollywood Park’s Grade I Cash Call Futurity conditioned by Hall of Fame trainer
Jerry Hollendorfer; West Point Thoroughbreds’
Flashy Sunrise, the runner-up to Cigar Street last time trained by
Dallas Stewart; and WinStar Farm’s
Windsurfer who broke his maiden at Gulfstream by 2 1/4-lengths and is trained by
Todd Pletcher, will join in the upcoming Louisiana Derby fray on closing day of the local winter racing season.