Chocolate Kisses, Queen of Beas give Casse strong hand in Thursday feature

Chocolate Kisses last winter used a Fair Grounds turf start as a launching pad toward an Oaklawn Park dirt stakes win. Keep in mind Chocolate Kisses won that New Orleans prep on the way to Arkansas when she returns to action following a long layoff in the featured eighth race Thursday at Fair Grounds.

Chocolate Kisses is one of nine older fillies and mares entered to race one mile on grass under third-level allowance conditions or an $80,000 claiming option. She’s one of two in this race from the barn of trainer Mark Casse, which also has Queen of Beas in the lineup. Queen of Beas, a 4-year-old with nothing but dirt races on her form, last started Sept. 2 while trained by Jorge Abreu. The winner of optional-claiming races at Gulfstream and Saratoga last year, she has been posting quick Fair Grounds works, though she might require a switch to dirt for her best chance.

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As for Chocolate Kisses, she won a first-level turf allowance race for 3-year-old fillies last January at Fair Grounds before going on to post a 7-1 upset in the Honeybee at Oaklawn Park. Chocolate Kisses last saw action finishing third in Street Band’s Indiana Oaks score last July, and unlike Queen of Beas, she has turf form and a grass pedigree as a sister to the excellent Fair Grounds-based grass-stakes runner Synchrony.

Two to consider at presumably playable win odds are Aife and Makealittlemischief, who finished 13th and eighth in the Albert Stall Memorial Stakes on Feb. 15. Both horses were drawn wide and raced well off the fence over a course featuring an absolutely golden rail. Makealittlemischief will show speed. Aife, trainer Matt Shirer said at the time, was going into the Stall Memorial in excellent shape.

Fullness of Life, a Group 3 winner in Italy last year, makes her North American debut in her first start since June and in the barn of trainer Brian House. Poster Girl should run better at this two-turn configuration than she did in a Fair Grounds turf-sprint stakes Jan. 25, her first start after relocating from California.

Race 5 is another race for fillies and mares, this one a dirt sprint open to second-level allowance horses or $40,000 claimers. Just five were entered here, but three, if not four, want to show speed, and one-run closing sprinter Beautiful Tale can get a lovely setup at fair odds.