As the winner of Fair Grounds’ Grade III
Lecomte Stakes two weeks ago, Jack Hammer’s Ron the Greek is the only
3-year-old who could join Friesan Fire as the second consecutive horse
to sweep the New Orleans
oval’s sophomore series during the current millennium.
Trained by Tom Amoss, Ron the
Greek went to the track Wednesday to prepare for the upcoming Grade II Risen
Star Stakes Feb. 20 as the middle leg of the Crescent
City
series. The final leg, of course, is the showcased Grade II Louisiana
Derby March 27, which with its new purse of $750,000 will
become the richest race ever run at Fair Grounds – the nation’s third oldest
Thoroughbred race course.
Ron the Greek breezed five furlongs in
1:01.40 in the midweek move, and on Friday Amoss allowed that his Lecomte
winner has proven to be an easy horse to train.
“We worked him five-eighths alongside
another horse just to keep him focused,” said Amoss.
However, Amoss – a New Orleans native
and the only conditioner in Fair Grounds history to win the local training
title nine times – also has another prominent 3-year-old in his barn that was
one of nation’s most precocious juveniles last year.
After breaking his maiden at first
asking last summer in Louisville,
Gold Mark Farm’s Backtalk went on to capture Churchill’s Grade III
Bashford Manor July 3 and then Saratoga’s
Grade II Sanford July 30 before finishing fourth in the Grade I Hopeful at the
upstate New
York oval. Then, when racing
over Polytrack for the first time in Keeneland’s Grade I Breeders Futurity he
ran eighth in the final start of his 2-year-old campaign.
According to Amoss, Backtalk will be
given a “serious” work Saturday morning to help him get reacquainted with the
Fair Grounds race track, and after he accomplishes that move future plans for
the Smarty Jones colt will become more focused.
Stay Put Staying Put for Grade II
Risen Star Stakes at Fair Grounds
Richard, Bertram and Elaine Klein’s
highly regarded sophomore Stay Put, who came from far back to win a
$50,000 allowance optional claiming race at Fair Grounds in his last start Jan.
3, breezed five furlongs in 1:01 Monday morning at the local oval in
preparation for the Grade II Risen Star Stakes on Louisiana Derby
Preview Day Feb. 20 in New Orleans.
“He worked good,” said trainer Steve
Margolis when asked to assess Stay Put’s move Friday morning outside his
barn. “He started good and picked it up. We’ll probably give him another work
next Thursday.”
Another Margolis-trained sophomore –
Sugar Bowl Stakes winner Cool Bullet – owned by Winmore LLC and lately
joined in partnership with Arkansas-based owners Robert and Lawana Low, is
probably headed for Oaklawn’s Grade III Southwest Stakes Feb. 15, Margolis
indicated.
“Those people like to run at Oaklawn and
the short stretch of that mile run up there should fit him quite well,” the
trainer said of Cool Bullet, who lacked the needed late response and finished
fourth in the Grade III Lecomte at last asking Jan. 23.
Margolis also announced that Liquidity,
sixth in the 2006 Grade II Louisiana Derby, subsequently fourth in that year’s
Grade I Santa Anita Derby and far back in the Kentucky Derby later that spring,
has recently arrived at his Fair Grounds barn.
Liquidity was originally retired and
scheduled for stud duty in Louisiana
following a fifth-place finish in Hollywood
Park’s
Grade I Charles Whittingham Memorial Handicap last June, but that career has
now been postponed – at least for this season.
Rachel Alexandra Gallops Again Friday
at Fair Grounds
Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra
had another “nice and easy” gallop around the Fair Grounds race track Friday morning,
reported Fair Grounds clocker Billy Pettingill.
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