Buggin Out goes for sixth straight Magic City Classic on Friday

The highest-class fare on a 10-race Friday card at Fair Grounds is a pair of first-level allowance races, but the most remarkable story on the card is Buggin Out.

Buggin Out won the Magic City Classic, an Alabama-bred race held annually at Fair Grounds, for the first time as a 3-year-old of 2014. He won it again in 2015, and in 2016, 2017, and 2018. That’s five straight Magic City wins, and even if the number of Alabama-breds is tightly capped, the achievement is somewhat remarkable.

Buggin Out goes for his sixth straight Magic City on Friday in race 4, but his run might be about to come to and end. Buggin Out has started only once since he won this race a year ago, finishing a distant seventh in a Delta Downs race Nov. 9, and though trainer Ronnie Ward used the same pattern to get Buggin Out his fifth Magic City win in 2018, the gelding is 8 now and appeared in his two-start 2018 campaign to have lost a couple steps.

Two Mikes N Doc G was a close third in the 2018 Magic City and hot trainer Ron Faucheux claimed him from Ward out of a Delta Downs $5,000 race on Nov. 9. He looks capable of stepping up with a winning performance, while Foolish Speed and Excelisberg have the speed figures to win this race if they can handle a two-turn dirt mile.