Mageez may turn tables on Grit in Star Guitar

NEW ORLEANS – The diversity of the Steve Asmussen stable is remarkable. From elite stakes performers (Gun Runner might be the second-best dirt horse in the world right now) to bottom-level maidens, Asmussen covers all categories at tracks where he runs strings. His client base is broad – and includes himself.

Asmussen regularly claims low- and mid-level claimers to run in his colors and regularly does well with them. Take the 5-year-old Louisiana-bred Grit.

Asmussen claimed him for $20,000 on Jan. 28, sent him out a little more than two weeks later to finish second to the talented 4-year-old Tour de Force in an open, first-level allowance race, won a Louisiana-bred second-level allowance on March 5, and now has Grit as one of the favorites in the $60,000 Star Guitar, race 9 and the closing-day feature on Sunday at Fair Grounds.

The Star Guitar is for Louisiana-breds at 1 1/16 miles on dirt, and all Grit really needs to contend is a repeat of his last two races. But that is not entirely ensured. Grit might actually have run a little bit better in his second-place finish two starts ago than in his win last out, and those are the two best performances of his 31-race career.

Moreover, Grit is a natural miler, probably best suited to Fair Grounds distance races that end at the sixteenth pole. Even going a mile and 70 yards in his last two races, he appeared to be losing momentum crossing the wire, and the added distance Sunday – as little as it might be – probably is of no help.

Grande Basin rallied to within a half-length of Grit on March 5 but has always been best as a one-run, closing sprinter; Sunday’s longer trip does him no good either. Jeff and J’s Dream was a most unlikely winner of a restricted stakes March 11 at Delta and is almost certain to regress to his career mean. Jess Stormin, Watch My Smoke, and Finishlikeapro are marginal players who probably cancel themselves out on the pace.

That leaves Mageez. Mageez at his peak is a better true route horse than Grit; in his first start at this meet, he was a fine second to Mobile Bay in the $150,000 Louisiana Champions Day Classic. Mageez barely showed up in the March 5 allowance race won by Grit but generally has been a consistent performer and, at anything like his 6-1 morning-line odds, is a good bet to bounce back into form.

◗ Closing weekend offers little suspense in the races for leading jockey and trainer at the meet: Florent Geroux will win his second straight riding title and Brad Cox his first training title at Fair Grounds.

Geroux was at 95 wins through Thursday, well off Rosie Napravnik’s record of 125 winners during the 2011-12 meet, but Geroux has hit that number from a mere 318 mounts. His strike rate for the meet sits just a tick below a remarkable 30 percent.

Cox entered Friday’s card with 41 wins, eight more than Joe Sharp. Tom Amoss had 32 winners, while Mike Stidham – whose barn was quarantined for several weeks because of the EHV-1 outbreak, has 31. Al Stall also entered the weekend with 31 winners and is the win-percentage champion among trainers with more than a handful of runners at slightly less than 30 percent.