Good Samaritan set for 2018 debut in New Orleans Handicap

Good Samaritan is expected to make his 4-year-old debut March 24 at Fair Grounds in the Grade 2, $400,000 New Orleans Handicap.

Good Samaritan has been working steadily this winter at Payson Park in Florida and is ready to get his season rolling, trainer Bill Mott said.

“We’re going to try and get started in there and see where he’s at,” said Mott, who trains Good Samaritan for WinStar Farm and the China Horse Club.

Good Samaritan won only once in seven starts during his 3-year-old campaign in 2017, but he enters 2018 as one of the more intriguing members of his class. His lone victory at 3 was a 4 3/4-length score in the Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga, and he ended his season with a solid second to Seeking the Soul while facing older horses for the first time in the Grade 1 Clark Handicap on Nov. 24 at Churchill. Moreover, Good Samaritan is the rare horse who might be equally capable on turf and dirt. Good Samaritan started his 3-year-old campaign on grass after having won the Grade 2 Summer and finishing third while perhaps running the best race in the 2016 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at 2.

“We’re not ruling anything out with him this year,” Mott said. “I think his races on the turf as a 2-year-old were exceptional.”

Good Samaritan, by Harlan’s Holiday, was working at Payson before the Clark and has been breezing steadily there since Jan. 30, posting seven workouts, the last four over five furlongs.

“He’s doing very well,” Mott said. “He hasn’t developed into a big, heavy horse by any means, but he’s filled out. He’s certainly athletic looking.”

Weights for the handicap races on the March 24 card come out this weekend. The other major entrant expected for the New Orleans Handicap is The Player, a rousing winner of the Mineshaft Handicap last month while racing in blinkers for the first time.

Mott also plans to send Forge for the Grade 2, $300,000 Mervin Muniz Handicap, a race Mott has won two of the last four years with Amira’s Prince and Take the Stand. Forge was second by a half-length to champion World Approval in the Feb. 25 Tampa Bay Stakes. The Muniz also could draw Revved Up and Ring Weekend from Florida, with Synchrony and Mr. Misunderstood, the one-two finishers last month in the Fair Grounds Handicap, the leading locals.