Fair Grounds: Always Here Too begins anew

Late this past summer, Tom Amoss had two especially promising-looking 2-year-olds, the filly Always Here Too and the colt Shared Property, circulating in the Midwest. Neither one entirely lived up to what seemed like their potential in the autumn, but the next phase of their careers is set to begin at Fair Grounds.

For Always Here Too, an actual comeback comes Wednesday, when she is scheduled to start in the sixth race, featured on a nine-race program at Fair Grounds. Always Here Too was one of 10 2-year-old fillies entered in a first-level allowance race carded at about 5 1/2 furlongs on turf and also open to $50,000 claimers. Two of the entrants, Dorothy’s Aurora and Cool It Boys, are entered to run only in the event of a rain-off onto the main track.

Always Here Too, Amoss said Monday, will start, even if the race remains on turf, though she has never raced on grass and, her trainer believes, has a future on dirt. Always Here Too, a daughter of Include, “actually has some turf in her pedigree,” Amoss said. “But we’re very happy with her on dirt, and that’s where we think her career as a 3-year-old will be.”

The idea, at this point, is just to get Always Here Too going again. She hasn’t started since finishing third behind Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies runner-up Grace Hall in the Blue Hen Stakes on Oct. 1 at Delaware, and, having finished a close fifth in the Arlington-Washington Lassie the start before, hasn’t won since impressively capturing a maiden race July 31 at Ellis Park.

If Always Here Too runs below form on grass, trainer David Carroll is poised to win race 6. Carroll has two entrants, Ready to Unleash and Givhans Ferry, who both look capable of delivering a contending performance.

Shared Property, meanwhile, came back onto the radar screen late last week when he turned in his first timed workout – a half-mile in 50.40 seconds – since finishing sixth as the favorite in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity Stakes on Oct. 8 at Keeneland. Shared Property probably didn’t show his best in that race and had previously won a maiden race at Ellis before capturing the Arlington-Washington Futurity. He could prove a significant player in 3-year-old stakes at Fair Grounds early in 2012. Amoss said Shared Property “didn’t have that much time off,” and that the colt might be ready to race in time to make the Lecomte Stakes on Jan. 21.