Fair Grounds: Hawley makes the most out of modest string of horses

NEW ORLEANS – The win pictures, displayed side by side, start on one wall, extend the length of a second wall, and go halfway down a third wall in trainer Wes Hawley’s office in his Fair Grounds barn.

“We try to make it all the way around,” Hawley said. “We’ve got about six more to go.”

As usual at a Fair Grounds meet, Hawley, who runs mainly a claiming operation, is making frequent visits to the winner’s circle. Through Thursday’s races, he had won with 20 of 103 starters to rank fifth in the trainer standings. Last season, he finished fifth. The meet before, he finished sixth.

“I generally come here with a lot more conditions,” said Hawley, a New Orleans resident whose summer and fall base is Louisiana Downs.

The Louisiana-bred filly Crypto Good, for example, won twice at the meet for him – at the first and second allowance levels. All four of her career victories came in New Orleans. She’s 0 for 3 at Louisiana Downs.

For some reason, Hawley said, Louisiana Downs proves tougher for him than Fair Grounds.

“I know other trainers don’t see it that way, but it’s always been that way for me,” he said. “I don’t save conditions. If I win 15 there, I win 20 here. If I win 16 there, then I win 25 here.”

Hawley is training 32 horses, the majority of them Louisiana-breds. The 3-year-old Louisiana-bred fillies Artist Cry and P T’s Jewel ran 1-2 for Hawley on the turf in the Sarah Lane’s Oates on Feb. 15. Artist Cry is 2 for 2 at the meet.

Hawley said he bought Artist Cry for $4,000 as a yearling at a Texas sale and sold an interest in her to Danny Brown.

“I just liked her,” Hawley said.

P T’s Jewel, owned and bred by Danny and Donna Brown, defeated $12,500 maiden claimers and $12,500 nonwinners of two before Hawley gave her a shot at stakes company.

“She just kind of developed into a better horse, and there was nowhere else to run her, and she ran a huge race,” he said.

A former assistant to Jere Smith Sr. and a trainer since 1993, Hawley, 51, has 496 career victories.

“I ain’t never had any great horses, but I’ve had some pretty good horses,” he said.

Among his best were Dawn After Dawn, Promise Me More, Seainsky, Caro’s Royalty, Look At the Time, Midnight Klugh, and Get In Da House. Get In Da House, who in his debut was claimed for $10,000 by Hawley in March 2011 at Fair Grounds, is still in the barn. He’s graded stakes-placed and has earned more than $450,000.

Deceptive Vision strong in comeback

Trainer Malcolm Pierce was confident that Deceptive Vision could handle turf, but until she ran on it, he couldn’t know for sure.

With a 2 1/4-length victory Feb. 22 in a second-level optional $40,000 claiming race on turf in her first start after a layoff of exactly a year, Deceptive Vision has Pierce considering grass in her future.

“That filly, I think she can run on any surface,” he said.

A daughter of A.P. Indy and the Smart Strike mare Eye of the Sphynx, Deceptive Vision, a Sam-Son Farms homebred, is a full sister of 2009 Queen’s Plate winner Eye of the Leopard and 2010 Queen’s Plate runner-up Hotep. Her layoff was due to a sesamoid injury that healed with rest, Pierce said.

Deceptive Vision, who has won 3 of 4 starts, might race next at Keeneland, Pierce said.

“I would like to put her in an easy stakes, but there are no easy stakes at Keeneland,” he said.

An allowance race there, either on turf or the synthetic main track, would be possible, Pierce said. A race during Kentucky Derby week at Churchill Downs is another possibility.

“She came back really good,” he said. “Everything’s really great with her. . . . It was a big effort the other day. We definitely want to give her plenty of time between races.”

Another of Pierce’s best horses is nearing a return from a freshening. On Tuesday, Up With the Birds worked three furlongs in 38 seconds.

It was the colt’s first workout since he won the Grade 1 Jamaica in November on the turf at Belmont Park in his final race as a 3-year-old and was sent to Sam-Son’s farm in Ocala, Fla., for a break.

He won 4 of 6 starts, including four stakes, last year. His other stakes victories in 2013 came in the Black Gold at Fair Grounds and the Breeders’ Stakes and the Marine Stakes at Woodbine. Up With the Birds finished second in the Grade 3 Transylvania at Keeneland and in the Queen’s Plate in his other races at 3.

“I’m hoping to have him ready for Keeneland,” Pierce said, though he also said that the colt’s return won’t be in the Grade 1 Maker’s 46 Mile there. Pierce said he would like to find a race in mid-April for Up With the Birds, a Sam-Son homebred by Stormy Atlantic.