Fair Grounds: Longhunter heads stakes-caliber turf sprint
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLE
NEW ORLEANS – Trainer Mike Maker, who has shown a knack for successfully moving horses up in class after claiming them, struck strongly with the 5-year-old gelding Longhunter.
Since being claimed by Maker for Ken and Sarah Ramsey for $16,000 in April at Keeneland, Longhunter has won four of six starts, including the Kentucky Downs Turf Dash, and has earned more than $182,000. Coming off a third-place finish in the Grade 1 Nearctic at Woodbine on Oct. 13, Longhunter is among several stakes-caliber horses sprinting Sunday in the $53,000 allowance feature on the Fair Grounds turf.
The about 5 1/2-furlong race, which drew a full field of 10 older horses plus two also-eligibles entered as main-track-only, is the eighth race on a nine-race card starting at 1 p.m. Central
“Any time you claim one for sixteen, you never expect what he’s done,” said Joe Sharp, Maker’s assistant at Fair Grounds. “That said, he’s always done everything right.”
The leading money winner in the field is Sum of the Parts, who has earned $716,543 in 16 starts. Sum of the Parts, coming off a ninth-place finish on dirt in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, is 0 for 2 on turf but has won the last two runnings of the Grade 3 Phoenix on the synthetic surface at Keeneland.
He opened his 2013 campaign with a last-place finish in the Colonel Power on the Fair Ground turf. In his other turf start, he set a fast pace before finishing second, a half-length behind Spring of the Sky, in the six-furlong Groovy in September at Belmont Park.
“He had a very good race in New York,” said Tom Amoss, trainer of Sum of the Parts. “As far as if he likes the grass or doesn’t like the grass, we think he does.”
This field also includes two graded-placed horses – Great Mills and Hammers Terror.
Great Mills, a multiple stakes winner trained by Steve Asmussen, finished in the money in three Grade 3 turf dashes in 2012, a campaign he capped with a fourth-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint. Great Mills’s best finish in two stakes starts this year is a second in the Troy in August at Saratoga.
Mike Stidham trains Hammers Terror, a stakes winner who hasn’t raced since early August. He has been running primarily in two-turn races and might be coming from off a likely fast pace.