Photo: CDI
One veteran stakes
campaigner currently on a three-race win streak, one 5-year-old mare who
waltzed home the heroine in last spring’s
$100,000 New Orleans Ladies, and a grass dash face-off between this year’s
Grade II Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint
runner-up and the 2009 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint champion. Together
those tests serve as the premier attractions on Saturday’s three-stakes
Santa Super Saturday program at Fair Grounds.
The Estate of Oliver Pierce’s
Sweetsouthernmoon, who
captured a six-furlong sprint at Fair Grounds Dec. 3 but won going the
mile distance at Delta Downs before that, has been installed as the 7-5
choice in Saturday’s 47th running of the 1 1/16-mile
Tenacious Handicap.
Based on his three-race victory streak, the Estate of Oliver Pierce’s’
Sweetsouthernmoon is pegged as the morning line favorite, while Jim Tafel’s
Fast Alex, a winner here locally at this time last year, is presumed the second choice at 3-1.
From the rail out, with weights and jockeys, the Tenacious Handicap field is: Fast Alex, 118,
Robby Albarado; Bob Gary Racing’s
Prospect Knight, 110, C. J. McMahon; Terry Hamilton and Robert Morgan’s
Gleam of Hope, 118, Corey Lanerie; Sweetsouthernmoon, 119,
Diego Saenz; and Don Benge’s Maximus Ruler, 115,
Brian Hernandez Jr.