Courtlandt Farms’ Machen,
allowed to settle early, rallied strongly approaching the lane, took
command in upper stretch and drew off with authority to capture Sunday’s
featured $45,000 six-furlong
sprint for 3-year-old maidens by 5 ½ lengths.
Trained by the resurgent
Neil Howard, enjoying one of his best starts at Fair Grounds in recent seasons, Machen was ridden by
Jamie Theriot, who replaced Robby Albarado after the latter suffered injuries earlier in the day.
Machen
is a Kentucky homebred by Distorted Humor out of multiple graded stakes
winner Ready’s Gal (More Than Ready) and is an early-bird nomination
to the 2011 Grade II $1,000,000 Louisiana Derby. He was making his first career start Sunday and earned the $27,000 winner’s share of the purse.
“He’s
trained along pretty nicely, said Howard. “He’s kind of been ready to
run, but even though he broke good enough in the mornings, he was
never real sharp away from the gate, but he’d go right on and the end
result was always good. He worked well, he trained well. So, as you can
see, I waited. He’s got quite a few more gate works in a row than
normal, so I decided to go ahead and run rather
than keep training.”
Machen paid $8, $5.60 and $3.40 and accomplished the distance in 1:10.41.
Adele Dilschneider’s
Sour rallied to gain the place in Sunday’s feature, finishing three lengths to the good of Southern Equine Stables’
Birdie Beats Par, who made the pace with splits of 22.14 and 46.05 before weakening.
Sour returned $15.60 and $9.80 and Birdie Beats Par paid $7.60