Napravnik becomes first woman to land FG riding
title
Twenty-three-year-old sensation Rosie Napravnik concluded the 139th
Thoroughbred racing season at Fair Grounds as the meet’s leading jockey with 110
wins, becoming the first woman to clinch a riding title at the New Orleans oval.
Napravnik was honored in the winner’s circle following the 7TH race on Sunday’s
closing day program, one day after she made history as the first female to win
the Louisiana Derby (G2) with an agile ride aboard PANTS ON FIRE (Jump Start),
who was named Fair Grounds’ Horse of the Meet.
“I have had a ton of highlights,” Napravnik said. “There’s such a long list
of people to thank. Some of the most supportive have been Mike Stidham and
Hilary Pridham and that outfit, and my fiance, Joe Sharp, for convincing me to
come down here and supporting me throughout the meet. I really want to thank
everybody. I’ve got some great fans here and I can’t wait to come back next
year.”
Napravnik won 13 stakes races on the season, topped by her biggest career
victory in the city’s first $1 million race, the Louisiana Derby.
“That was an unbelievable feeling,” she said. “You know, it wasn’t really
expected. When I came across the wire I thought to myself, ‘Well, wait, this is
the Derby, right? Did I just win the Derby?'”
Napravnik, who finished 31 wins ahead of second-leading jockey Shaun
Bridgmohan (79 wins), indicated she will ride next at Keeneland’s spring meet,
April 8-29, before heading to Delaware Park, where she dominated the standings
last year.
Steve Asmussen, inducted into the Fair Grounds Hall of Fame on Thursday, won
46 races this season (13 more than Tom Amoss with 33) to earn his 10th Fair
Grounds training title, tying him with Jack Van Berg, the all-time leading
conditioner at Fair Grounds, for most leading trainer crowns. Asmussen now has
767 career wins at Fair Grounds, second only to Van Berg.
Maggi Moss took home her first Fair Grounds owner title with 19 wins. The Des
Moines, Iowa, native was co-leading owner (with Heiligbrodt Racing) during the
shortened 2005-06 Fair Grounds season that was relocated to Louisiana Downs.
“The Fair Grounds is my favorite racetrack,” Moss said after a trophy
presentation Sunday. “It really means a lot to me. This and Churchill completes
my career. I couldn’t be more excited. I thank everybody that is here, the
management of Fair Grounds, and I thank Steve Asmussen and Tom Amoss, because
they are the ones that did it and, actually, the horses probably the most.”
George and Lori Hall’s Pants on Fire was named Horse of the Meet in a vote of
media and racing officials. The three-year-old colt, trained by Kelly Breen,
competed in all three of Fair Grounds’ graded stakes races for horses on the
Triple Crown trail, finishing second by a head in the Lecomte S. (G3) and sixth
in the Risen Star S. (G2), despite reportedly battling an illness, before the
Louisiana Derby triumph. Pants on Fire is likely to make his next start in the
May 7 Kentucky Derby (G1).
And finally, in a five-week tournament-style poll of visitors to
FairGroundsRaceCourse.com that closed Sunday, the 1924 Louisiana Derby and
Kentucky Derby winner Black Gold was named the all-time favorite Fair Grounds
horse, besting Risen Star in the final round of voting, 57.5 percent to 42.5
percent. The tournament started with 32 horses enshrined in the Fair Grounds
Hall of Fame. Whirlaway and Tiffany Lass completed the “Fair Grounds Final
Four.”