The Cherie DeVaux barn won with their two final runners of the most recent Fair Grounds racing week, and on the first card of this week, Thursday, DeVaux sends out the talented Louisiana-bred layoff filly named Prayforthewicked in the co-featured fourth race. But you could forgive DeVaux and her team for looking forward a bit further, since they are likely to be double-barreled in both the Silverbulletday and the Lecomte on the multi-stakes Fair Grounds program of Jan. 17. DeVaux over the weekend said she intends to enter Golden Tempo and Mesquite in the Grade 3, $250,000 Lecomte, a stepping-stone to the Risen Star in February and, further out, the Louisiana Derby in March. Atropa has been aimed for several weeks toward the $150,000 Silverbulletday, while a second filly, White Smoke, punched her ticket to the race with a Monday workout. Atropa has done the most among the quartet, rebounding from a sloppy-track Saratoga sixth sprinting in her debut to win a Keeneland maiden route by 10 lengths in October. Seven weeks later, Atropa rallied sturdily and steadily for second behind Bella Ballerina in the Grade 2 Golden Rod at Churchill. DeVaux gave Atropa a brief freshening after shipping to New Orleans, though the filly, by Into Mischief, never stopped galloping. “She’s done really well. I might have to space her races out a little bit,” DeVaux said of the decision to start back in the Silverbulletday rather than await the Rachel Alexandra in February. “She’s growing a lot. I don’t want to force myself to run her every month.” The Essential Quality filly White Smoke scored a debut sprint win Dec. 20 at Fair Grounds and after an easy half-mile Monday morning got the green light for the Silverbulletday, a two-turn race over a mile and 70 yards. :: Big Action in the Big Easy at Fair Grounds! DRF Past Performances and Picks are available now. Golden Tempo also debuted in a Dec. 20 sprint, closing from 10th to win going away with a decent 78 Beyer Speed Figure. That he won at all surprised his trainer, who figured she’d springboard from the sprint into a maiden route. “Kind of a surprise he got it done,” DeVaux said. “He was breezing well – just never showed a lot of speed and definitely looked like a two-turn horse.” A homebred, Golden Tempo campaigns for the Phipps Stable and St. Elias Stable. He’s out of the Bernardini mare Carrumba and hails from an old, successful Phipps family line. DeVaux had to scratch Mesquite, a second-start maiden route winner in Kentucky, from the Gun Runner on Dec. 20 after the colt showed signs of minor illness. Mesquite did come down with a little something but lost little or nothing in terms of condition, DeVaux said, and breezed on Jan. 2. Looking longer-term, DeVaux said Eclipse Award finalist She Feels Pretty, a fine second in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf capping an outstanding campaign, is “not far from getting back under tack” at the farm where she’s having a winter respite. A couple weeks of farm training and She Feels Pretty will return to the racetrack, said DeVaux, who plans to put She Feels Pretty on a schedule similar to last year, when she launched her campaign in the Modesty at Churchill Downs. And, finally, the once-started 3-year-old colt Englishman, who got a 97 Beyer Speed Figure in a smashing debut win Sept. 17, is scheduled to join DeVaux’s Fair Grounds string sometime this week. If all goes well, Englishman will return to breezing in early February. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.