Amoss, Asmussen runners look best

OPELOUSAS, La. - It is Amoss vs. Asmussen at Evangeline Downs Saturday night in the $100,000 Matron Handicap. The one-mile race for fillies and mares drew a field of six and will go as the 10th of 11 races.

Trainer Tom Amoss has the starting highweight in the Matron with Delicate Dynamite at 119 pounds. Fourth last time out in the Grade 3 Mint Julep Handicap on the Churchill Downs turf in mid-June, Delicate Dynamite won three stakes in Louisiana earlier in the year.

She won the Truly Bound Breeders' Cup and the Crou Croute Breeders' Cup in consecutive starts at Fair Grounds before she shipped to Delta Downs where she won the $100,000 Goddess in March. She has been training steadily for her return after taking most of the summer off. Gerard Melancon will ride.

Trainer Steve Asmussen brings Plaid in to defend her title in the Matron. She was rated just one pound below Delicate Dynamite off a fourth-place finish in the Grade 1 Go for Wand in July at Saratoga. A 6-year-old daughter of Deputy Commander, Plaid's last stakes win was by six lengths at Prairie Meadows in early June. Curt Bourque will ride.

Madison's Music, trained by Keith Bourgeois, appears to be the controlling speed. She comes in riding a four-race winning streak, three of which came in stakes. Her latest was a front-running 11-length win against Louisiana-breds on Champions Night here June 30. Regular rider Kirk LeBlanc will be in the saddle at 117 pounds.

Bourgeois's other entrant is Dragum. A 3-year-old Menifee filly, she will return to the main track after finishing eighth in the Lyrique Stakes at Louisiana Downs on the grass.

Amoss also has Stormy Amber in the Matron. She most recently finished ninth in allowance company on the Arlington turf. She, too, will return to what appears to be her best surface.

Gold Power, going for her third win this meet, completes the field.