Fair Grounds: Unknown Road starting back after surgery

NEW ORLEANS - Unknown Road has returned to regular galloping after being gelded in late January. Unknown Road scored one of the best maiden victories of the Fair Grounds meet when he won a Dec. 19 sprint race by almost 12 lengths, but he could only finish a distant fourth as the heavy favorite in a two-turn first-level allowance race here Jan. 24.

A few days later, Unknown Road was sent to the equine medical clinic at Louisiana State University where surgery was performed to remove his testicles, neither of which had descended. Stall could find nothing wrong with Unknown Road coming out of his Jan. 24 race; undescended testicles can cause discomfort in horses.

“The surgery went fine,” Stall said. “It was very uneventful.”

Unknown Road might breeze sometime next week, Stall said.

Meanwhile, the Stall-trained Central Banker, most recently a good second to Shakin It Up in the Grade 1 Malibu on Dec. 26 at Santa Anita, might train up to the April 5 Carter Handicap at Aqueduct rather than starting at Fair Grounds in the Duncan Kenner Stakes on March 8. The Kenner’s purse was cut from $150,000 to $100,000 in January, and the prospect of facing Fair Grounds ace sprinter Delaunay for that amount of money doesn’t appeal to Stall.

“Between Delaunay and the purse cut, we’re probably passing the Kenner,” Stall said.

Finally, Sign, unbeaten in her two starts at age 2 in 2012 but unraced since, has continued to progress steadily this winter and is nearing a comeback race, Stall said.

Turf or dirt?

Sunday’s featured seventh race, for second-level allowance horses or $40,000 claimers and carded at about one mile on grass, includes a couple names Fair Grounds handicappers have seen frequently this winter: Dream Man and Strike Impact. The names, though, are all that have been seen, as both horses have been scratched from a seemingly countless number of off-the-turf races at the meet.

Of course, there’s a chance of showers here Sunday, and with heavy rain having fallen Thursday night, it wouldn’t take much to move the feature to dirt. There, the race could come down to main-track-only entrants Proud Strike and Call Me George, though Conspiracy, who’s in the main body of the field, has won two straight on the local main track.

Dream Man and Strike Impact both fit the spot on turf, as does Major Gain, though none of those horses has raced since last fall.