Amoss always merits respect early in meet

Trainer Tom Amoss wins prolifically, and at a high percentage, wherever he races. Amoss, too, wins prolifically and at a high percentage at Fair Grounds. Narrow the focus further, to the earliest days of Fair Grounds meets, and Amoss looks even better.

The past three years, during Fair Grounds races run during November, the Amoss barn has compiled a record of 15-8-2 from 37 starters, with a return on investment in the black. Those gaudy numbers come despite a somewhat disappointing November 2013, when Amoss was just barely misfiring at Fair Grounds, sending out six second-place finishers and just three winners.

So, if history is any guide, the Amoss barn may be poised for a big day Saturday at Fair Grounds, the second day of the 2014-2015 race meet. Amoss has horses entered in five of the card’s 10 races (3, 6, 8, 9, 10) and will have a horse for the featured sixth regardless of whether the race stays on turf or goes onto dirt due to rain.

On grass, the Amoss runner is Red Strike; he entered the venerable Louisiana-bred Populist Politics main-track-only. No trainer in New Orleans plays the main-track-only game better than Amoss.

Populist Politics hasn’t raced since May and is winless in four 2014 starts, but he will fit cozily into this spot if the feature is rained onto dirt, a distinct possibility given the Saturday forecast.

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The race, carded for one mile and to be run at one mile 70 yards if it winds up on the main track, is for second-level allowance horses with a $40,000 claiming option under which Populist Politics is entered. Populist Politics, a 6-year-old, has been a Louisiana-bred stakes horse for several years, and in different hands, the move into claiming ranks might raise more red flags than it does with Amoss. But this barn is nothing but realistic, and Populist Politics, more likely than not, is merely being realistically placed.

The same might be said for Red Strike, the Amoss turf option. Red Strike threw in a real clinker Nov. 6 at Churchill, finishing some 18 lengths behind the winner in a second-level optional $62,500 claimer on grass. Red Strike runs for the $40,000 tag here, but that is only a drop down to the claiming price Amoss and owner Maggi Moss paid in March. Red Strike has since won four times, long since earning back his purchase price, and in a soft spot, he is very much eligible for a bounce-back race Saturday.

DRF FORMULATOR FACT: Amoss is 8-4-1-0-3 with a $2.47 ROI the last five years at Fair Grounds with favorites racing one mile or farther in optional-claiming turf routes.