Fair Grounds notes: Scherer’s homecoming more emotional amid health issues

NEW ORLEANS – A New Orleans native who has a home in the French Quarter and roots for the Saints, veteran Fair Grounds trainer Richie Scherer looks forward to coming to his hometown track.

Because of health concerns, his homecoming this season has been more emotional than usual.

Scherer, whose circuit is Chicago/New Orleans, learned early last month that he needed to undergo his second cancer surgery this year. He set up his Fair Grounds barn, stayed in town for a while, and headed back to Chicago, where he had surgery Nov. 19. Last week, he was back at work at Fair Grounds.

“It’s good to be back,” Scherer said as he watched Mr. Vegas walk energetically off the track after a morning gallop. “It’s been a tumultuous year. It’s a good thing the horses have been running good.”

He hasn’t resumed playing tennis, but every day, he’s feeling a little better and a little stronger, he said. Cancer didn’t show in his most recent tests, he said, and he will have regular monitoring – “one CAT scan at a time” – to keep tabs of the situation. Meanwhile, he has a barn to run.

Before Scherer came back, assistant Jose Zapata and brother Gary Scherer, a trainer whose barn is nearby, helped keep the operation running smoothly, Richie Scherer said.

He said he has been touched by how people throughout racing have reached out to him.

“It was overwhelming – everybody’s support and well-wishing,” he said. “I was overwhelmed by everybody’s kindness.”

Scherer, 50, has 741 career victories. He’s having solid 2013, having won 25 races from 152 starts, and at this meet, he won with two of his first seven starters.

Mr. Vegas, who has done his best running at Fair Grounds, is set to make his meet debut Saturday in the $75,000 Buddy Diliberto Memorial Handicap on turf. In another of the six stakes on the Saturday card, Scherer will be running Arlington-Washington Lassie winner She’s Offlee Good in the $60,000 Letellier Memorial, a six-furlong race for 2-year-old fillies.

Mr. Vegas closed 2011 with two optional-claiming victories on the Fair Grounds turf before going on a strong run in turf stakes in the 2012 portion of that meet. He won the Grade 3 Col. E.R. Bradley, finished second in the Grade 3 Fair Grounds Handicap, and was fourth in the Grade 2 Mervin Muniz.

“I hope it wasn’t just the turf course, because we’ve got a new turf course,” Scherer said.

Mr. Vegas, a 6-year-old gelding, is winless in four starts this year. He’s coming off a seventh-place finish Oct. 18 in a Keeneland allowance race that drew five graded winners and eight graded-placed horses in a 12-horse field. His best finish this year was second in the Illinois Owners Stakes at Arlington Park.

Mr. Vegas was scratched at least twice this year from races switched from turf to dirt, Scherer said.

“He should be fresh for the winter,” he said.

She’s Offlee Good finished 12th in the Alcibiades on Oct. 4 at Keeneland in her last race, her only defeat in three starts. Scherer said he doesn’t have a valid excuse.

“Could have been two turns,” he said. “Could have been a different venue. I don’t know. And I don’t really know how she’ll react on the dirt. She’s been on [Polytrack] pretty much.”

Tapiture, Untapable get a break

Tapiture and Untapable, the most accomplished 2-year-olds trained by Steve Asmussen, are settling into life at Fair Grounds.

“Both of them are getting a little break right now,” Asmussen said. “When they go back in serious training has yet to be determined.”

The colt Tapiture won the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes at Churchill Downs to close his 2013 season, and the filly Untapable, who won the Grade 2 Pocahontas at Churchill, finished third in the Grade 1 Hollywood Starlet in her season-ending race.

Another promising youngster trained by Asmussen is Gold Hawk, a son of 2003 Belmont Stakes winner Empire Maker out of Caressing, who was the champion 2-year-old filly in 2000.

Gold Hawk has worked twice since coming to Fair Grounds.

◗ Mr. Vegas will be part of a solid Diliberto. Grade 1 winner King David, trained by Mike Maker, Grade 3 winner Daddy Nose Best, trained by Asmussen, and Compliance Officer, a New York invader trained by Bruce Brown, are other horses headed to the race.

◗ The sprinter Sum of the Parts, who won the last two runnings of the Grade 3 Phoenix on Keeneland’s synthetic surface, will try turf for trainer Tom Amoss in the Bonapaw.

◗ The track will run an extra day, Monday, during Christmas week.