Eagle should be a player in handicap ranks

Eagle, who developed into one of the best older dirt-route horses in the Midwest last year, is back from a rest and shipped from trainer Neil Howard’s barn at Churchill Downs to Fair Grounds on Sunday night. Traveling with him was Guest Suite, a 2-year-old who impressed on Saturday, winning a Churchill allowance race.

Tough luck limited Eagle to one win this year in the Ben Ali Stakes at Keeneland, but he was placed third after a troubled trip in the New Orleans Handicap at Fair Grounds, was second in the Alysheba Stakes at Churchill, and finished second by a half-length in the Grade 1 Stephen Foster at Churchill.

“Eagle got a nice, long, well-deserved rest,” Howard said Sunday. “I just got him back yesterday. He’s been training at WinStar Farm. He won’t be ready until midway through the meet down there, but he looks fantastic, and I see no reason why he won’t be a nice older horse this year.”

If all goes well, Eagle could make his 2017 debut in the Mineshaft at Fair Grounds in February.

Guest Suite has won twice from four starts, capturing a two-turn Keeneland maiden race before finishing third behind McCraken, the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes winner Saturday, in the Street Sense.

“We had a chance to keep him at one turn and take the more conservative route after the Street Sense, and that’s what we chose to do,” Howard said. “But I don’t think there are going to be limitations with him as far as distance. We’re pointing tentatively to the Lecomte.”

◗ A pair of second-level allowance races – a turf route for females (race 7) and a dirt sprint for 3-year-olds and up (race 8) – are co-featured on Thursday’s nine-race card. Race 7 is the deeper of the two, with 11 entrants, including a Neil Pessin-trained entry. The dirt sprint has just six entrants, with Modern Medicine the pick to notch a minor upset.