'Destiny' begins comeback

NEW ORLEANS - Last season at Fair Grounds, Destiny Calls showed signs of possessing the talent of her sister, You'llbeinmyheart, who beat males in the 2002 Gentilly Handicap here. But it is hard to say which way Destiny Calls is headed now.

Unraced since April, Destiny Calls makes her comeback Saturday in the eighth race, a second-level allowance sprint for statebred fillies. That race and the one that follows, an open two-other-than allowance, are co-featured on a 10-race program.

Bred and owned by Vickie and Bryan Krantz, Destiny Calls is a daughter of With Approval and the Miswaki mare Longue Vue, an especially high-end pedigree for a statebred filly. That, and the talent she displayed in the morning, made Destiny Calls 1-2 in her career debut here last February, which she won by two lengths. Destiny Calls then followed that victory with a narrow win in a first-level statebred turf race.

Destiny Calls was sixth in an open stakes at Keeneland in April before going to the sidelines, but it is her debut race that is most pertinent to Saturday's contest. Destiny Calls may well turn out to be a turf horse - like her sister - but she demonstrated the ability to win going short on dirt, and five works on the Fair Grounds main track should have Destiny Calls ready to roll in her first start after the layoff.

If not, the race could fall to Taking Flight, who flopped at odds-on in a Delta Downs allowance race last time out, but before that, finished second in a pair of Louisiana-bred stakes races.

The ninth race, at about 1 1/16 miles on turf, seems more confusing. Eight were entered, and with the torrents of rain that fell throughout Thursday, the race easily could be moved to turf.

For grass, the right horse may be Dyna Penny, who showed little when she was rained onto dirt in her last start, but was third of 10 despite early trouble in the Old South Handicap on Oct. 4 and second by a head in a second-level grass allowance in her previous start.

On dirt, look at Humble Billie, one of the owner and trainer Jim Danaher's Arkansas home-breds. Ten weeks ago, she took advantage of wet conditions to win an off-the-turf Louisiana Downs allowance race by more than six lengths.