The long and the short of it is this: Three plausible winners of the featured sixth race Thursday at Fair Grounds are caught between long and short. Classic Performer and Cairo Dream, who won’t be close to favored, and Storm Miami, who won’t be worse than second choice, have toggled between route races slightly too long and sprints that often have proved a little too short. That trio and nine other older fillies and mares are tasked with racing 5 1/2 furlongs in a second-level allowance carded for turf and open to $50,000 claimers. Two entrants run only if the race is moved to dirt, which, if the forecast holds, it won’t be, a welcome change from last week’s rain-soaked programs. Four-year-old Storm Miami has an Irish-born jockey, Ben Curtis, and trainer, one Brendan Walsh, and herself came into this world on the Emerald Isle, where she made five starts as a 2-year-old. The first four, all creditable performances, came in five-furlong dashes, where Storm Miami showed good speed. Yet when she resumed her career in America at age 3, Storm Miami had become a miler. Thus began her career-defining pattern: Flatten out in routes, struggle to deploy sufficient quick-twitch muscle power in sprints. :: Access the most trusted data and information in horse racing! DRF Past Performances and Picks are available now. Since crisply closing from fourth to finally clear her first allowance condition going long this past June at Saratoga, Storm Miami has hung late in all four of her races, including a head defeat going 1 1/16 miles at this class level late last month. Blinkers go on, the same move Walsh made cutting her back to sprints 18 months ago. Classic Performer misled her connections when she wired an off-the-turf route last January: They kept her running long, and Classic Performer lost her form. Her return on Nov. 16 from a five-month layoff came in a sprint, and while Classic Performer finished seventh, she showed at least a little spark in a race upon which she can improve. Classic Performer possesses less upside than Cairo Dream, who has made only nine starts and none since May 29. In her debut, Cairo Dream looked the part of a turf sprinter, surging to a six-length win over Hawthorne maidens, but failed to reproduce that performance in subsequent sprints as well as the routes that later followed. Trainer Chris Block finally cut her back to 5 1/2 furlongs in May, and after falling too far off the pace, Cairo Dream surged late for second, closing ground on victorious Foxxy Cleopatra, who two races later almost won a $250,000 turf sprint stakes. While Cairo Dream likely offers value, Don’t Say It probably doesn’t, a good candidate to be bet below her 7-2 morning line with a three-back Fair Grounds turf-sprint win, a trouble line from her most recent outing, and Brad Cox as her trainer. True, Don’t Say It, as the official chart notes, found tight quarters last out at the furlong grounds, her jockey totally easing up on his mount after Don’t Say It failed to get through a gap. Part of the reason she couldn’t get through: The filly didn’t quicken sufficiently to hit the hole. Biscuitwiththeboss’s last two races, Maryland turf sprints, make her look like a player, but in both she faced lesser foes while racing six furlongs. At least, though, we can be sure she’s a sprinter. ◗ Brian Hernandez Jr. took time off following the end of the Churchill meet on Nov. 30 and is scheduled to resume riding Saturday at Fair Grounds. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.