Clairiere pops into in Wednesday allowance at Fair Grounds
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLE
Audrey’s Time made her graded-stakes debut Jan. 30 at Sam Houston, finishing a creditable third behind victorious Pauline’s Pearl, a sharp, improving 4-year-old filly trained by Steve Asmusssen for Stonestreet Stables.
Neil Pessin, who trains Audrey’s Time for Lothenbach Stables, has penciled in the Doubledogdare Stakes next month at Keeneland as a good spot for Audrey’s Time, and to get there decided to take advantage of a high-end, dirt-route allowance race carded Wednesday at Fair Grounds.
The race might well serve as a useful stepping-stone, but Pessin and Audrey’s Time have managed to run smack into an even better Asmussen-trained, Stonestreet-owned 4-year-old filly, Clairiere, who makes her 2022 debut in Wednesday’s seventh race.
Pauline’s Pearl, giving weight and stumbling at the start, ably represented connections Saturday in the Azeri Stakes at Oaklawn, a local prep for the Grade 1 Apple Blossom. Wednesday’s Fair Grounds allowance race is Clairiere’s prep for the Apple Blossom.
“Very excited about getting her back and the way she’s been training gives us a lot of confidence she is going to have a very good 4-year-old campaign,” Asmussen said. “We were happy to be able to use this race as a prep for the Apple Blossom.”
Clairiere is 4-5 on the morning line and will be a lower price than that when the gates spring open. Joel Rosario, who never has ridden Clairiere but who has been riding many of Asmussen’s leading stakes starters, will fly to New Orleans to take the call.
The race, carded for 1 1/16 miles, drew seven entrants, including the coupled Tom Amoss-trained entry of Tizafeelin and Misty Veil. The race is a basic third-level allowance, though it has two allowance conditions, and is open to $80,000 claimers. Clairiere carries 120 pounds, giving no more than three pounds to any of her rivals.
Clairiere, by Curlin out of the Grade 1 winner Cavorting, won her career debut late in her 2-year-old season racing in a two-turn Churchill maiden race. The filly in fact has made nine of her 10 starts around two turns, finishing third in the Mother Goose, a one-turn, 1 1/16-mile contest at Belmont Park.
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Fourth in the Kentucky Oaks, Clairiere raced competitively in several Grade 1s before winning one, the Cotillion last September at Parx Racing. She capped her season closing into a very strong pace to finish fourth, beaten less than one length, in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff.
No one will beat Clairiere if she approaches her baseline performance level, though Audrey’s Time has improved over the last several months, winning the Spanky Broussard Memorial Stakes at Fair Grounds before going to Houston.
“I just put her in there to get her a race for the Doubledogdare instead of working her three or four times,” Pessin said. “It didn’t matter who else was running.”
Pessin got his spot, Clairiere got hers, a star making a surprise appearance on a Wednesday in New Orleans.