Fair Grounds: Thursday allowance feature unlikely to stay on turf

NEW ORLEANS – After training had ended Tuesday morning, a tractor drove around the outside of the Fair Grounds turf course with an attachment drilling aeration holes into the grass. Closer to the inner rail, a mower clipped a couple of inches off the top of the course while maintenance workers took down the portable inner rail.

Fair Grounds is attending to its troubled grass course, but there was nothing the track could do about the heavy rain that fell here Sunday night and Monday morning. That precipitation, added to a course that has been slow to dry out and froze about one week ago while still laden with water, suggests that the co-featured race 6 on Thursday stands a good chance of being moved to the main track.

Nine fillies and mares were entered in the 1 1/16-mile race, a second-level allowance with a $40,000 claiming option, but the number of actual starters would almost certainly be significantly reduced with a move to the main track.

Fair Grounds has run only a handful of grass races in recent weeks. During the card last Thursday, races were twice taken off the turf and moved to dirt. Rain fell again Saturday, and no grass racing was conducted the rest of the racing week.

On Saturday, Fair Grounds met with horsemen to discuss the turf condition and announced that no turf sprints – which are thought to be more problematic for the course than two-turn races – would be included in the next condition book.

If the Thursday races somehow remain on grass, it will be a chance for Propelleroneway to make a long-awaited comeback. The 4-year-old Propelleroneway, a Malibu Moon filly, won two grass races during the 2012-13 Fair Grounds season but hasn’t started since the second of those scores March 9. She was entered in a recent similar spot by trainer Andrew McKeever and scratched when the race was moved to dirt.

Another talented layoff horse, Liz Pendens, ran poorly in her lone dirt try, though that was on a muddy track and she has posted steady, encouraging drills on the Fair Grounds main track while preparing for her first start since August.

Ocean Bertie, who has shown similar ability on turf and dirt, might be the one to beat with a rain-off, though she has won just two of 19 career starts.

Race 5 on Thursday is written at the same class level as race 6 but will be contested at six furlongs on dirt and drew only six entrants. Interest Free can improve in her second race back from an extended layoff and is a prime win threat if she does.