Cox goes to deep bench for Fair Grounds stakes

When the calendar flipped to 2020, one might have imagined trainer Brad Cox having Taraz or British Idiom, both Fair Grounds-based at the time, in the Fair Grounds Oaks and Mr. Monomoy in the Louisiana Derby. None of those horses will start Saturday on the biggest card of the Fair Grounds meet, but Cox still will be well represented in both races.

Bonny South, who looks like second choice to Finite, starts in the Fair Grounds Oaks, while Cox runs two, Wells Bayou and Shake Some Action, in the Grade 2, $1 million Louisiana Derby.

Taraz tragically broke down in a workout this winter and had to be euthanized, while British Idiom wasn’t entered in the Fair Grounds Oaks when the March 21 card was drawn March 14, only to have her intended spot, the Grade 1 Ashland, disappear when Keeneland canceled its spring meet because of the coronavirus pandemic. Mr. Monomoy won the first and faster division of the split Risen Star Stakes on Feb. 15 only to be taken out of action with an ankle injury shortly thereafter.

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Bonny South ran easily the best race of her three-start career Feb. 15 at Oaklawn, where she closed into a strong pace and defeated the Cox-trained Shedaresthedevil, who returned to win the Honeybee Stakes at Oaklawn. It was Bonny South’s first start in blinkers, and Bonny South had been scheduled to face maidens when Cox shipped her from Fair Grounds before she was promoted from second to first in a maiden race when the winner was disqualified because of a post-race drug positive.

“We think a lot of the horse that she beat, and it gives us a right to think this filly should be competitive in a graded stake,” Cox said.

Wells Bayou has won two of his four starts, taking his real misstep in a Churchill Downs one-turn-mile allowance race last fall following a debut victory sprinting at Keeneland. Cox never found a specific reason for Wells Bayou’s performance that day but wasn’t surprised the colt, by Lookin At Lucky, prospered when stretched to two turns at Oaklawn Park. There, he won a first-level allowance race and set a strong pace in the Southwest Stakes, holding second behind perfect-trip Silver Prospector. Wells Bayou was considered for the Rebel Stakes on March 14 at Oaklawn, but his connections opted for the Louisiana Derby in order to give him an extra week to recover from a demanding effort and to try Wells Bayou over a 1 3/16-mile trip Cox believes he’ll relish. Wells Bayou was shipped to Fair Grounds in time to get his final Louisiana Derby work over the local surface, a drill Cox said was “very impressive.”

Cox’s second Louisiana Derby entrant Shake Some Action is more of a grinding type and comes into Saturday’s race after a turf maiden win and a dirt allowance win, both over nine furlongs at Fair Grounds.