Grass sprint sets stage for stakes

The older male turf-sprint stakes schedule at Fair Grounds launches Jan. 17 with the Duncan Kenner, and they’re warming up for it in the featured seventh race Sunday.

Six horses, none with a race over the Fair Grounds turf course, were entered in a 5 1/2-furlong grass dash with a $66,000 purse and no qualifying conditions beyond being at least 3 years old. The sextet has combined for 30 wins, and while Usually Wrong has run only nine times, he has seven of those victories. A 4-year-old gelding trained by Robertino Diodoro, Usually Wrong won the Zia Sprint on dirt last out, but it was a move to turf racing in May that boosted him to a new, higher level.

Usually Wrong won his first three grass tries, including two Lone Star stakes, but ran worse as the 6-5 favorite on Sept. 28 in a Remington Park grass sprint. Usually Wrong, who hadn’t raced in three months, loomed in upper stretch before going flat through the final furlong, barely hanging on for fourth.

He’ll need something a notch better to win the Sunday feature. Heart Headed and Champlin ran one-three, separated by a head and a nose, in a no-conditions turf sprint allowance last month at Churchill Downs, and High Front’s seventh behind Usually Wrong at Remington marked a trough in a form pattern that otherwise fits this spot.

◗ Rafael Hernandez, the leading rider at the marathon Woodbine meet that recently ended, will shift his tack to Fair Grounds, according to Jose Garcia, a jockey’s agent who will represent Hernandez in New Orleans. Hernandez has ridden one race, in 2018, at Fair Grounds. Garcia also books mounts for Paco Lopez, who, through Dec. 18, topped the local rider standings with 15 winners.

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