Lone Sailor will be coming late in Tenacious Stakes

NEW ORLEANS – Lone Sailor’s last port of call was Korea. He’ll stay a lot closer to home Saturday when he’s set to start in the $75,000 Tenacious Stakes, the first race in Fair Grounds’s series of two-turn dirt races for older horses.

Lone Sailor has two performances this year clearly good enough to win the Tenacious – a third-place finish behind Breeders’ Cup Classic hero Vino Rosso and Grade 1 winner Gift Box in the May 27 Gold Cup at Santa Anita, and a narrow defeat to Quip in the Grade 2 Oaklawn Handicap. The latter race featured a solid early and middle pace and was contested over a wet track, and exactly those circumstances could apply to the 1 1/16-mile Tenacious. A strong chance of rain beginning Friday night and throughout Saturday threatens to turn Saturday’s card sodden.

“There seems to be a lot of speed, which is one of the reasons we’re in there,” trainer Tom Amoss said.

Lone Sailor didn’t do much running in the Grade 1 Korea Cup, but he might prove happier running out of his own stall 50 yards from the half-mile pole at Fair Grounds than he did racing on the other side of the world.

The thing with Lone Sailor: Even when he turns in a top effort, he’s liable not to win. Twenty-two races into his career, Lone Sailor remains eligible for a second-level allowance race, and his second victory, in the Ohio Derby, came by a scant nose.

Given his herd instincts and deep-closing style, Lone Sailor lacks as much appeal as a Tenacious win play as Blended Citizen, who is likely to be bet below his 5-1 morning line. Four-year-old Blended Citizen won the Peter Pan Stakes in 2018 when trained by Doug O’Neill yet was kept strictly to turf racing during his 2019 campaign until being turned over to trainer Brad Cox this fall. Cox switched Blended Citizen to dirt on Nov. 27 in a third-level Churchill Downs allowance and got an encouraging half-length win out of him.

“I think he appreciated getting back to dirt,” Cox said. “He breezed really well at Fair Grounds, and I think he’ll like that long stretch.”

Pioneer Spirit beat C Z Rocket by a neck in a high-end Nov. 2 Churchill allowance race with a $150,000 claiming option through which Pioneer Spirit changed hands and wound up in the barn of trainer Robertino Diodoro. Both horses could get involved in a pace battle that might be joined by Tringale and the clearly overmatched Extirpator.

Diliberto tough to figure

The $75,000 Buddy Diliberto Memorial Stakes looked difficult enough to parse without even accounting for the weather.

The middle-distance grass race for older horses now seems likely to be run either on a wet turf course or be switched to dirt. Another moving part: a third-level turf-route allowance for which entries will be taken Saturday that could draw at least two horses out of the Diliberto.

Scratches would benefit Dot Matrix, who rates a mild edge on turf but drew post 13. New York-bred Dot Matrix had a productive summer and fall in New York and exits a third-place finish in the Grade 3 Red Smith at Aqueduct, where he ran longer than his best trip and faced stronger rivals than he’d meet Saturday. Dot Matrix, trained by Cox, is 2-1-0 from three starts over the Fair Grounds turf and has handled softer grass courses in the past.

If not Dot Matrix, then the race is thrown totally wide open, with the likes of Renaisance Frolic, Space Mountain, and Say the Word worthy of attention. Captivating Moon, cross-entered in the Tenacious, would be the most obvious beneficiary of a surface switch. A turf horse most of his career, Captivating Moon won a sloppy-track Churchill allowance race two starts ago and held his own in all three of his dirt starts there this fall.

Made You Look faces questions

Made You Look was privately purchased by Rigney Racing after his most recent start, on Oct. 25 at Belmont, and turned over to Rigney’s private trainer, Phil Bauer, with an eye toward turf-sprint stakes racing. With starts this year in the Grade 1 Woodbine Mile and Grade 1 Foustardave, there’s no doubt Made You Look has faced the strongest competition of any horse entered in the $75,000 Bonapaw Stakes, but the 5 1/2-furlong turf race might be too short for Made You Look, and if enough rain falls might not even be contested on turf.

There are reasons (pedigree, lack of late punch going a mile) to believe Made You Look might suit sprint racing, but something between six and seven furlongs seems like a better distance, and dirt is a total unknown for this son of More Than Ready.

Star of Kodiak has some longshot appeal if the Bonapaw remains on turf. He didn’t quite stay a mile Nov. 30 at Fair Grounds but won a fast and productive Keeneland turf-sprint allowance in his previous start and has untapped potential in short turf races.

Jazzy Times rates a strong chance, too, if he can get back to his best summer turf-sprint form.

Gray Attempt and Wilbo are the chief contenders if the Bonapaw is moved to the main track.

◗ La Signare won the Wonder Again Stakes at odds of 6-1 eighteen months ago, but that was the last time she came through at a fair price. La Signare has failed to progress since the Wonder Again and even after a layoff and barn change delivered another underwhelming performance as the 5-2 favorite in a Keeneland allowance race on Oct. 17. She’ll take money again Saturday in the $75,000 Blushing K. D. Stakes, but the play here is Flower Party. Flower Party disappointed in a pair of spring 2019 starts after being imported from Italy but is training with verve again and will get her chance Saturday even if the Blushing K. D. is rained onto dirt.