Juveniles showcased on Sunday's card

The featured eighth race Sunday at Fair Grounds is a second-level turf-route allowance also open to $40,000 claimers. It has 11 horses in the main body plus four main-track-only entrants, and on its own would go a long way to holding together the entire program.

But there is much more to this card, mainly in the form of promising 2-year-olds.

Three maiden special weight races and a first-level dirt-route allowance were to run on Saturday’s six-stakes card, yet Fair Grounds managed to make three more maiden-specials plus another first-level 2-year-old allowance for Sunday. If no one has yet patted the racing office staff on the back, they should do it themselves.

As for the featured eighth, its most interesting entrant, Forevamo, will start only if the race is moved from turf to dirt. Main-track-only Forevamo was racing for the first time in six months and as a gelding when he finished second in a six-furlong race at this level Nov. 26. Forevamo is at least a miler if not a true route horse, and he should have plenty of room to improve Sunday – if he gets the chance to run.

On turf there are a variety of paths to choose, including one leading to Patrick’s Day. The underrated trainer Michelle Lovell claimed Patrick’s Day for $40,000 on behalf of Agave Racing Stable on Nov. 26 at Churchill. Patrick’s Day easily won that two-turn turf race and his new connections are wasting no time trying to knock out the second allowance condition, which made him an appealing claim. It is, unfortunately, difficult to envision Patrick’s Day starting anywhere close to his 8-1 morning-line odds.

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Race 5, a two-turn dirt allowance restricted to 2-year-old fillies, could yield a runner or two for the Jan. 14 Silverbulletday Stakes. Missive and Sterling Miss each won a Fair Grounds maiden race last month – the former going long, the latter short – while America’s Tale ran off to a 13 1/2-length maiden win in an off-turf Churchill Downs one-turn mile.

The pick, however, is Saguaro Row, who finished a distant fifth in the Rags to Riches Stakes on Oct. 29 at Churchill, her most recent race, but showed plenty of promise in a Laurel debut victory this fall.

Races 4 and 6 are two-turn turf routes for 2-year-old maidens, while race 7 is a 2-year-old maiden dirt route for fillies, and by card’s end the local 2-year-old hierarchy will have taken firmer shape than it held entering this weekend.

Lone Sailor targeting Lecomte

The talented 2-year-old Lone Sailor will make his next start Jan. 14 in the Lecomte Stakes, trainer Tom Amoss confirmed via text message Friday.

Lone Sailor, who is campaigned by Gail Benson’s G M B Racing, won an off-the-turf seven-furlong Saratoga maiden race by 11 lengths, and came back to finish a troubled third in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland. He was second by a head in the Oct. 29 Street Sense at Churchill, and after breaking from post 13 and racing from as far back as 12th place, rallied to finish fifth in the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes there.

Lone Sailor, by Majestic Warrior out of the Mr. Greeley mare Ambitious, has worked twice since shipping into Fair Grounds, most recently going five furlongs in a bullet 59.80 seconds on Dec. 14.

Greeley going to Futurity

Greeley Went West, who followed up on a debut win at Louisiana Downs with a one-length win Saturday in the Louisiana Champions Day Juvenile Stakes, will make his next start Dec. 31 in the colts and geldings division of the Louisiana Futurity. Among his rivals will be the second-place finisher in the Juvenile, Divine Bean.

Trainer James Hodges said that Greeley Went West will run in the Crescent City Derby on March 24 at Fair Grounds. He might go in the $100,000 Premier Night Prince on Feb. 10 at Delta Downs in between the Futurity and the Crescent City Derby.

“He’s a nice colt,” said Hodges. “He’s been very professional.”