Fair Grounds: Gantry catches a break in Thanksgiving Handicap

Consider the published past performances for the Thanksgiving Handicap only a rough guide to the race.

Delaunay, the 6-5 morning-line favorite and defending champion, was found to have a fever shortly after entries were taken Saturday and will be scratched. The participation of Foreign Production, trainer Ron Faucheux said, also is in doubt, and were he to be scratched, the race would go with four runners at most.

Faucheux and the Brittlyn Stable of Evelyn Benoit are the beneficiaries of Delaunay’s absence, as Gantry, second in the 2012 Thanksgiving and first in 2011, inherits the favorite’s role as the 119-pound starting highweight. Three-year-olds Mico Margarita and Central Banker have a shot, while Strong and Tough looks overmatched.

The Thanksgiving is carded for six furlongs on dirt and offers a $100,000 purse. Early first post for the holiday card is 11:05 a.m. Central with the feature scheduled for 3:15.

Gantry was purchased privately in 2011 and has panned out nicely, subsequently earning nearly $600,000 while winning five stakes. He was the leading dirt sprinter of the 2011-2012 Fair Grounds meet before being displaced by Delaunay last season, and Gantry could only finish second in his first three starts this year before winning the $50,000 Temperance Hill on Sept. 7 at Louisiana Downs.

Gantry ran fast enough there, earning a 105 Beyer Speed Figure, and Faucheux said Gantry is coming into Thursday’s race in good shape. Probably best as a pace-presser, Gantry will break from the rail with Delaunay’s scratch and might wind up on the lead, with Mico Margarita pressing to his outside. That trip could prove less than ideal, and Gantry will offer no value as a heavy favorite. But his degree of vulnerability depends on Mico Margarita and Central Banker.

Mico Margarita won the Grade 3 Carry Back at Calder on July 6 and was second to Forty Tales in the July 28 Amsterdam at Saratoga after the addition of blinkers took him to a new performance level earlier this year. But he hasn’t raced since the Amsterdam, and trainer Steve Asmussen said Mico Margarita, as a somewhat disinterested work horse, isn’t a hot prospect to show his best after a layoff.

“Hopefully, we’ll get a good race out of him Thursday,” he said.

Had Delaunay been able to compete, Central Banker might have ended up in the Woodchopper Stakes, a two-turn turf race Saturday, but Central Banker is capable as a sprinter and a dirt horse. In his only dirt sprint this season, he finished third behind Capo Bastone and Mentor Cane in the Grade 1 King’s Bishop at Saratoga, and if Mico Margarita and Gantry tangle early, the race could set up for him.