Saturday’s featured
6TH
race at Fair Grounds, an allowance going a mile on the grass for
older horses, has produced a solid field of 13 — with two main-track only
entrants — including four graded winners. Despite the aforementioned
quartet, the 4-1 morning-line favorite is the Gary Scherer-trained Beyond
Compare (Tapit).
Unlike his graded stakes-winning competition who need to
return to form, Beyond Compare is sharp in three local starts this Fair Grounds
season, including two victories. The five-year-old gelding exits a second at this level
on January 9 and gets the
return call from Francisco Torres from the three-hole.
Directly to his inside and with every right to improve is Infinite Magic
(More Than Ready), who became a graded winner at three in
the American Derby (G3) at Arlington. The Wayne Catalano trainee outran his 25-1 odds to finish a game fourth in the Col. E. R. Bradley H.
(G3) on January 17 despite
the good ground being slightly softer than he would prefer. That being said,
the five-year-old bay prefers rock-hard ground that he may not receive two
days after Wednesday rain forced Thursday’s card off the turf. Marcelino Pedroza
picks up the ride on the 8-1 morning-line shot.
Fellow Catalano trainee Solitary Ranger (U S Ranger) has been burning up
the track in the mornings, including a bullet half-mile move in a swift :47 flat
on Monday, as he looks to make his four-year-old debut in Saturday’s contest. The
dark bay four-year-old won
the Arlington-Washington Futurity (G3) over Arlington’s Polytrack
surface in September 2013 and owns a win in his lone Fair Grounds start — going
wire-to-wire in a one-mile turf race in January 2014. Last seen finishing a dull eighth
in the Straight Line S. on Arlington Million Day, August 16, the 10-1 morning-line shot will look to return to form after finishing
out of the money in four of his last five. Willie Martinez picks up the ride
from post five.
Seven-year-old multiple Grade 3 victor Grand
Contender (Strong Contender) was assigned a morning line of 9-2 and post seven under meet-leading
rider James Graham for meet-leading conditioner Tom Amoss. The earner of more
than
$617,000 has yet to compete on grass and is presumably entered in case the race
comes off the turf, just as he was in the Diliberto Memorial in December — a
race he easily won wire-to-wire in the slop.
Perhaps the most intriguing member of the field is General Election (Harlan’s
Holiday). A two-time Grade 3 scorer on the lawn,
the seven-year-old gelding was purchased for $450,000 at Keeneland’s November
sale in 2013, but has only raced twice since — finishing off the board in both
events. Trained by Neil Pessin, he has not been seen since running sixth,
beaten less than three lengths, in a conditioned allowance on July 11 at
Arlington. Florent Geroux gets the return call on the bay 12-1 morning-line shot
from post 10.
The remainder of the field is flush with quality, including minor stakes
winner Alamo Heights (Dunkirk), Grade 3-placed stalwarts Adios Nardo (Invisible
Ink), All Stormy (Stormy Atlantic) and Shining Copper (Aragorn), and quality allowance
charges Paroled (Flatter) and Geothermal (Unbridled Energy). Group 3 runner-up Cougar Ridge
(Johannesburg) and stakes-placed Afford (Street Sense) were entered for the
main-track only.
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