Meet closes with pair of featured turf sprints

NEW ORLEANS – Fair Grounds heads into its closing-day card Sunday in a far-better position than a year ago, when problems with the turf course were among several issues that raised the ire of horsemen.

The turf course had a new drainage system put in during the offseason, and it has performed sensationally, allowing for racing even during a storm Thursday and looking Friday morning like a course that had been raced on for days, not months.

“We wouldn’t have been able to race on this course on Thursday in the past or even today,” trainer Grant Forster said Friday morning.

Trainer Tom Amoss added: “This course is better than it’s been in the past 10 years.”

Fair Grounds will get maximum use out of it on closing day Sunday, with seven of the 11 races carded for grass, including a pair of first-level allowance turf sprints going 5 1/2 furlongs that serve as the nominal featured races.

In race 10, Marv in Lafitte seeks his third win in his last four starts as he moves out of the Louisiana-bred ranks into open company.

In race 11, for females, Miss Lucky returns for her first start since September and tries turf for the first time while getting the services of Florent Geroux, who came into Friday’s card locked in a pitched battle for second in the jockey standings.

Through Thursday, Geroux had 69 wins, tying him for third with Cisco Torres while just two back of the second-place Miguel Mena.

Geroux will ride at Keeneland, then the first week at Churchill Downs before heading to Arlington Park, according to his agent, Doug Bredar.

James Graham is the runaway leader here with 101 wins. Graham entered Friday’s card with 1,997 career victories, so he very well could top 2,000 before meet’s end.

Amoss is the leading trainer with 39 wins entering Friday’s card, four more than the second-place Bret Calhoun.

** Sandra Salmen, the popular horsemen’s-relations director here, is retiring with the close of the meeting Sunday.