The two best horses in a cracking edition of the $150,000 Louisiana Champions Day Classic come from different sides of the tracks. String King was bred and is owned by Charlie Smith, who owns a body shop in northwest Louisiana and has dabbled in training and breeding for the last several decades, never with more than a mare or two. Sunbean was bred and is owned by the Brittlyn Stable of Evelyn and Maurice Benoit, the owner of a successful oil-services company, Benoit Machine, and among the most prominent horsemen in Louisiana. Sunbean, a 3-year-old, has won 5 of 10 starts and is 4 for 5 in Louisiana-bred competition, but it is String King, the top Louisiana-bred in training, who’s the horse to beat in the Classic. String King has won the last two editions of the Champions Day Turf, but Smith has planned for weeks to have a go at the Classic this year. String King has won 2 of 6 starts on a fast track and would be running on wet dirt for the first time if Saturday’s rainy forecast holds, but Smith said he thinks it’s the Classic’s 1 1/8-mile distance that works in his favor. “I just don’t think there’s a Louisiana-bred that can run a mile and an eighth against him on any surface,” Smith said. “When he’s getting beat a mile and a sixteenth, which is very seldom, he’s always coming.” The Classic is one of six Thoroughbred stakes (the other five each worth $100,000) on Louisiana Champions Day, which begins with an early 12:30 p.m. Central first post and starts off with three $100,000 Quarter Horse stakes. The 10th-race Classic, with post time scheduled for 4:53, drew a field of nine, though Hud’s Rebellion is cross-entered in the Turf (trainer Andy Leggio said he was undecided as of Thursday in which race the horse would start). Sunbean is the 5-2 morning-line favorite for the Classic, with Populist Politics listed at 3-1 and String King 7-2, but it would be quite surprising to see String King, an 11-time winner of almost $580,000, drift that high. String King won the Mr. Sulu Stakes on turf Nov. 23 at Fair Grounds, his first start in 10 weeks, and Smith expects the horse to improve off that performance. It has been by design that String King has not worked since the Mr. Sulu; the horse puts plenty of energy into his daily gallops. And the prospect of a wet track does not concern Smith, who said String King trains well in mud and slop at his regular training-center base near Louisiana Downs. Sunbean has faced older horses only in his most recent start, a narrow closing victory over the decent but hardly spectacular Redrotrush going one mile at Delta. Trained for his last three starts by Ron Faucheux, Sunbean has won up to 1 1/16 miles, but he is out of a sprinting family and could be stretched at 1 1/8 miles through a long homestretch. Populist Politics threw a dud in the 2012 Classic, finishing 10th, but is a much more capable horse than that and is a four-time Fair Grounds winner who should be running late for trainer Tom Amoss and jockey Gerard Melancon. Skip the Pinot, another Leggio-trained horse, should set the pace from the rail and is a wire-to-wire threat if allowed to slow the pace. Sittin At the Bar formidable In Ladies Sprint Sittin At the Bar is 3 for 3 at Fair Grounds and 3 for 3 at the six-furlong distance of the Champions Day Ladies Sprint. She has proven virtually unbeatable against Louisiana-bred competition and should add to her sterling 8-for-14 record. Sittin At the Bar, a 3-year-old trained by Brett Brinkman, hasn’t raced since a 10th-place finish over Keeneland’s Polytrack in the Grade 2 Raven Run on Oct. 19, and she shows no published workouts since that race. But the Evangeline Training Center where Sittin At the Bar is based employs a clocker only on Saturdays, and the filly, Brinkman said, has logged three half-mile breezes preparing for Champions Day. “She’s been doing pretty well. She’s been her usual self,” Brinkman said. There is plenty of early speed in the Ladies Sprint to set the table for Sittin At the Bar’s late rally, and a similar scenario could unfold in the open Sprint. The full field of 14, on paper at least, is packed with speed, and Louisiana Glory could get a good setup if he can avoid traffic problems from post 5. Louisiana Glory has finished fifth and seventh in his two most recent races, but neither was a dirt sprint, the 4-year-old colt’s specialty. In his two most recent six-furlong dirt starts, he won a Louisiana-bred stakes and finished second to the graded-stakes-class Gantry* ◗ Prominent Louisiana owner and breeder Coteau Grove Farm is poised for a good afternoon if things go right. Little Ms Protocol is the 9-5 favorite and one to beat in the Ladies Classic, while Coteau Rouge, an easy winner in his first two starts, should be heavily favored to win the Juvenile. ◗ The Turf and the Lassie drew discouragingly short fields of six this year. Hud’s Rebellion could race in the Classic instead of the Turf, which would leave Sadie’s Soldier a prohibitive favorite in the day’s lone grass race.