Fair Grounds: Sign could see action in Wednesday feature after extended layoff

Sign began her career at age 2 winning a maiden sprint at Saratoga by nearly a dozen lengths and the Grade 2 Pocahontas at Churchill by four. This was during the summer and fall of 2012 – and Sign is just now getting back to work.

Sign, now 4, was entered main-track-only in the featured fourth race on Wednesday at Fair Grounds, a second-level allowance open to $40,000 claimers and carded for about 5 1/2 furlongs on turf. There’s a strong chance of rain Monday night and Tuesday, and a decent chance Tuesday night, meaning Sign has a good chance of finally resuming her career Wednesday.

“She’s a great athlete and she looks good,” said Al Stall, who trains Sign for co-owner and co-breeder Claiborne Farm. “She seems like herself to us.”

Sign’s career was delayed by two injuries, Stall said: She chipped a hind ankle not long after winning the Pocahontas, an injury that required surgery to repair. And Sign suffered another setback (no surgery required) while gearing up for a return to training partway through 2013.

The filly made news off the track, too. Sign tested positive for the relatively benign medication methocarbamol in the Pocahontas, and she was initially disqualified from first place because of the violation. Claiborne and Stall mounted a vigorous legal contestation of the disqualification, and Sign’s first-place finish eventually was restored by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission last year.

Now, it’s time to see if Sign can progress further. Sign had been in full training in South Carolina when she came into Stall’s Fair Grounds barn in early January. She won her debut at six furlongs and probably has enough speed to be effective at Wednesday’s short-sprint distance.

“She’s a big forward horse. She’s on the engine, and it’s not like she’s at all sluggish,” Stall said.

On turf, the race is difficult to fathom; all six fillies and mares in the main body of the field have credentials suggesting they can win.

Unknown Road gelded

Unknown Road, one of the sharpest maiden winners of the Fair Grounds meet, has left trainer Al Stall’s barn and currently is stabled at the Ocala farm of his owner, Dennis Narlinger’s JMJ Racing Stables.

Making his second career start, Unknown Road won a Dec. 19 maiden sprint by almost 12 lengths, but, stretched to two turns for the first time, he could only finish fourth of five as the 1-5 favorite in a Jan. 24 allowance race. Unknown Road was known to be a ridgling, and shortly after that race surgery was performed to geld the horse, whose testicles both were undescended.

“He’s fine, but he went through a lot and had lost some weight,” Stall said. “He just needs to get himself totally reorganized.”