Good Samaritan wins New Orleans Handicap; The Player gravely injured

Good Samaritan rallied from last and rolled to an easy win in the Grade 2, $400,000 New Orleans Handicap while making his 4-year-old debut Saturday at Fair Grounds.

The race was marred by an injury to The Player, who was pulled up on the far turn by jockey Calvin Borel. The Player, the 4-5 favorite after impressively winning the Mineshaft Handicap on Feb. 17, led around the first turn and down the backstretch but was overtaken by the half-mile pole, lost his position on the far turn, and was taken out of the race past the three-eighths pole.

The Player was fitted with a Kinsey splint on his right front leg, loaded into the equine ambulance, and transported back to the Fair Grounds barn of trainer Buff Bradley, where he was diagnosed, Bradley said, with fractures to both sesamoids in the foreleg.

“Obviously, we’re trying to save him. Right now, we’re sending X-rays to the surgeon to see what to do,” said Bradley.

Good Samaritan ($4.60) never shows speed and ran true to form while starting for the first time since a runner-up finish Nov. 24 in the Grade 1 Clark Handicap. Under Joel Rosario, he trailed into the homestretch through splits of 23.88 seconds, 48.18, and 1:11.85, but as the field straightened for home, Good Samaritan had caught the three horses still in the race. Good Samaritan struck the front at the eighth pole and quickly pulled clear, beating Hollywood Handsome to the wire by about three lengths, getting his 1 1/8 miles on a fast track in 1:49.87.

“He was happy where he was,” Rosario said. “He just loves to run, and he finished really well the last quarter of a mile.”

Scuba was third, and Han Sense finished fourth. Leofric was scratched because of a sore foot.

Good Samaritan won the Grade 2 Jim Dandy last summer at Saratoga when switched to dirt after a series of tough-luck grass races, but he failed to improve off that performance in the Travers Stakes and the Jockey Club Gold Cup before coming within a half-length of winning the Clark. Good Samaritan got a winter break, and trainer Bill Mott circled the New Orleans Handicap as a starting point for his 2018 campaign.

“Bill had this on his radar from the start of the year,” said Elliott Walden, president and chief executive of racing operations at WinStar Farm, Good Samaritan’s breeder and co-owner with the China Horse Club. “Bill had him trained to the minute, and he was ready to go.”

A son of Harlan’s Holiday and the Pulpit mare Pull Dancer, Good Samaritan now has a record of 4-3-1 from 11 starts, and the best may be yet to come from a later-maturing colt who seems equally capable on turf and dirt. Walden didn’t rule out a return to grass at some point but said the goal is to make Good Samaritan a Grade 1 winner on dirt.

– additional reporting by Jay Privman