Factor This tries to kick-start season with Fair Grounds Stakes repeat

Factor This began a four-race winning streak in the Fair Grounds Stakes last February and is coming back to New Orleans from Florida to try and win the race’s 2021 renewal on Saturday.

Factor This won five races, including three Grade 2s and a Grade 3, during an excellent 2020 campaign that ended less successfully than it began. Factor This finished eighth, beaten less than four lengths, in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, a race short of his best distance, and ran eighth as the favorite in the Dec. 12 Fort Lauderdale Stakes at Gulfstream.

“His last race was awful,” was trainer Brad Cox’s blunt assessment.

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Cox kept Factor This in Florida following the Fort Lauderdale and said his major work for Saturday’s start, a bullet five furlongs Jan. 31 over the Palm Meadows training center turf in 58.40 seconds, was as good as his Fort Lauderdale was poor.

“He breezed really, really well over there,” said Cox, who also entered Set Piece in the Fair Grounds Stakes. Set Piece on Dec. 31 won the Prairie Bayou over Turfway’s Polytrack by 3 1/4 lengths.

Meanwhile, Travel Column, the likely favorite for the Grade 2 Rachel Alexandra, continues to turn heads in her morning training at Fair Grounds. She has been the regular workmate of Eclipse Award-winner Essential Quality, the pair going five furlongs Sunday in 1:00.60.

“She breezed really, really well [Sunday] morning,” Cox said. “She’s always been a really good work horse, and we’ve been able to do a lot with her getting her ready for this.”

Travel Column is one of nine entered in the 1 1/16-mile Rachel Alexandra, a race that also drew Clairiere, an eye-catching debut winner last fall and second to Travel Column in the Golden Rod at Churchill, her only other start. Charlie’s Penny, winner of the Silverbulletday last month at Fair Grounds, also is scheduled to start.