Fair Grounds: General Election points to Woodchopper

NEW ORLEANS – It will not take long for Arlington chairman Richard Duchossois to get a good idea exactly what he purchased for $450,000 earlier this month at Keeneland’s November horse auction.

General Election, the 3-year-old colt Duchossois bought from WinStar Farm’s consignment of horses of racing age, is stabled with new trainer Neil Pessin at Fair Grounds and is scheduled to work on Saturday morning, and if all goes well he will make his first start for his new connections on Nov. 30 in the $75,000 Woodchopper Stakes.

Duchossois breeds a handful of horses, and in recent years he has purchased a prospect or two from overseas, but his foray into the domestic racing market is fairly unusual.

“This is the first horse like this he’s bought in a while,” said Pessin.

Duchossois got a first-hand look at General Election at his best and worst this past summer at Arlington. He rallied strongly to win the Arlington Classic on May 25, but finished a flat seventh on July 13 in the American Derby and got a ride off the track in a horse ambulance. Nothing turned out to be seriously amiss with General Election, who returned to action in September and won the Grade 3 Jefferson Cup at Churchill in his most recent race.

“The Woodchopper is the first plan, and we’ll go from there,” Pessin said. “I think he can run on dirt, turf, or Poly, and if he didn’t run well on grass in the Woodchopper, we might try the dirt with him.”

Pessin also will have a major player for the Woodchopper’s sister race, the Nov. 29 Pago Hop Stakes for 3-year-old fillies, in Eden Prairie. Eden Prairie, who won a turf-route allowance race on the Fair Grounds course last season, finished second by a neck in her most recent start, the Grade 2 Raven Run over seven furlongs on Keeneland’s Polytrack.

“I think seven-eighths on Polytrack is her best race, but she can go a mile on turf, and this is the last race of the year for straight 3-year-olds,” said Pessin.

Fry feels she’s ready now

Vanessa Fry is ready to try again.

Fry, a 25-year-old Atlanta native, launched her riding career in the first race on Sept. 28 at Arlington – and then immediately un-launched it.

Fry had been working horses at Arlington for several months, but having experienced the actual feeling of riding in an actual race, she decided more experience was what she needed.

“I just came down here as soon as the track opened and started working as many horses as I could,” said Fry, who is a rare female African-American entrant to the jockey ranks. “I feel like I’m ready now.”

By her count, Fry has breezed about 220 horses since arriving in New Orleans in early October. She thought she would be permitted to ride opening day, but had to work a horse to the satisfaction of the stewards on Friday morning, delaying the restart of her career. Fry had no mounts on Sunday, the first day she was eligible to start riding again.

Fry’s agent here, Derek Ducoing, also represents leading rider Rosie Napravnik.

Keep an eye on Coteau Ridge

The nominal feature on Sunday’s 10-race card is race 8, a first-level, 7 1/2-furlong turf allowance for fillies and mares. But the horse on Sunday’s card with perhaps the brightest future starts in the ninth race, a first-level sprint allowance for Louisiana-bred 2-year-olds. Coteau Rouge is basically a Louisiana-bred in name only, being a son of Tale of the Cat and a Coronado’s Quest mare.

Bred and owned by Coteau Grove Farm and trained by Pat Devereux, Coteau Rouge showed professionalism from start to finish in his career debut Oct. 12 at Delta, scoring by 2 1/4 lengths over subsequent next-out winner Kapenta, who had more than 11 lengths on the show horse that night.

With Diego Saenz in to ride, Coteau Rouge breaks from post 9 as the likely favorite in an 11-horse field Sunday.