Fair Grounds: Asmussen taking shots at five stakes

Steve Asmussen might need to hire extra help just to saddle horses Saturday at Fair Grounds. Already the meet’s leading trainer with 10 winners entering Thursday’s action, Asmussen has horses in eight races Saturday, including at least one starter for five of the card’s six stakes.

And if things go well, Asmussen could be wearing down his own little path into the winner’s circle.

Asmussen has a plausible chance in all five stakes. Prayer for Relief, dropping from the Grade 1 Clark, is the 120-pound highweight and will be among the favorites in the $75,000 Tenacious Handicap. Daddy Nose Best carries the Asmussen banner in a deep edition of the $75,000 Buddy Diliberto Memorial Handicap. Asmussen has the $75,000 Bonapaw covered with Great Mills for turf and Mico Margarita for dirt, and has horses for two $60,000 overnight 2-year-old stakes: D’cajun Cat is the horse to beat in the Sugar Bowl, and the filly Street Story has a shot in the Letellier.

Five-year-old Prayer for Relief – whose $1.5 million bankroll exceeds the combined career earnings of his seven foes – has raced from coast to coast, but the 1 1/16-mile Tenacious marks his Fair Grounds debut. Prayer for Relief’s peak 2013 race produced a victory in the Grade 3 Cornhusker in June, but he never got involved in the Nov. 29 Clark, checking in last of nine.

“That race was too bad to be believed,” Asmussen said.

Prayer for Relief wasted little time getting to work upon arriving in New Orleans: He worked a half-mile Dec. 7 and breezed five furlongs Dec. 10.

Grand Contender, a sharp winner of the Delta Mile last month, was cross-entered in the Tenacious and the Diliberto, and could opt for the latter spot if that race is rained onto dirt, trainer Tom Amoss said. Tenacious entrant Agent Di Nozzo, a winner in half his 14 dirt races, ran out of homestretch on the Delta bullring when chasing Grand Contender last month, but the long Fair Grounds straightaway should provide him enough time to get home, and Agent Di Nozzo is good enough to do so.

Diliberto: Turf or dirt?

Daddy Nose Best is one of 12 horses in the main body of the Diliberto (four more are also-eligibles), a race tough to figure without even taking account who is hoping for a rain-off onto dirt, and who actually wants turf. What Daddy Nose Best wants, Asmussen said, is firm ground, which he got in sharply winning the $100,000 Remington Green two races ago, and which he did not when a one-paced fifth last out in the River City Handicap.

King David is the 120-pound Diliberto highweight, but his best form – a win in the Grade 1 Jamaica, a closing second in the Commonwealth Turf – is more than one year old. King David, who drew wide in post 10, returned from an eight-month layoff to win an allowance race Sept. 29 at Churchill, but hasn’t started since.

New York shipper Compliance Officer won the 2011 Claiming Crown Jewel in his lone previous Fair Grounds grass start, but returns just two weeks after an allowance-race victory at Aqueduct. Mr. Vegas was a local turf terror two Fair Grounds seasons ago. Stuck on the also-eligible list are 2012 Diliberto winner Strike Impact, and Marchman, a good-looking winner of the Woodchopper two weekends ago.

Great Mills in rebound spot

Asmussen still doesn’t know why Great Mills turned in such a clunker Oct. 5 in the Woodford Stakes at Keeneland, finishing last of 10.
“I loved how he was doing and he ran the worst race of his life,” Asmussen said.

Great Mills rebounded to win a Dec. 1 allowance race by two lengths, his fourth victory in six Fair Grounds grass starts, and he deserves favoritism in the 5 1/2-furlong Bonapaw.

A front-running type, Great Mills could get an early challenge from Sum of the Parts, who was scratched from the Dec. 1 allowance but runs Saturday be the race on turf or dirt. Sum of the Parts has scored all his best wins on synthetic surfaces.

The Asmussen-trained Mico Margarita faded to third in the Thanksgiving Handicap, his first race since a second in the Grade 2 Amsterdam on July 28 at Saratoga, but Asmussen believes Mico Margarita will move forward if the Bonapaw is rained onto dirt.

“They’ll like how he runs if he gets the chance,” he said.

Six for Sugar Bowl, Letellier

D’cajun Cat went off course racing on a sloppy mess of a track June 29 at Churchill, finishing fifth as the 13-10 favorite in the Bashford Manor. But the Asmussen-trained 2-year-old colt’s 5 1/2-length debut win June 1 stamps him as the most likely winner of the Sugar Bowl.
D’cajun Cat, well drawn on the outside of a six-horse field, cedes recency to Albano, a Larry Jones-trained colt who looked good winning a Nov. 24 Fair Grounds maiden race.

The Sugar Bowl’s sister race, the Letellier, also drew six entrants, including Arlington-Washington Lassie winner She’s Offlee Good, who makes her dirt debut, and Toni’s Hollyday, a sharp Fair Grounds maiden winner Nov. 23.

◗ The stakes action begins with race 5, the $75,000 Blushing K.D., a filly and mare grass route with two major players, Same Cross and Imposing Grace, who would be best-served by a rain-off onto dirt.