New faces add to optimistic mood as Fair Grounds opens

NEW ORLEANS – Thank goodness the equine herpesvirus outbreak that began late last December at Fair Grounds was, in the scope of such things, minimal. Only one horse was seriously afflicted, and the actual spread of the more serious neurologic strain of the disease was quickly contained. But the effect on the Fair Grounds meet was fairly catastrophic. The whole track came under a state-mandated quarantine, meaning no horses could ship in to race, and at the situation’s peak, about 350 horses on the backstretch were quarantined in their individual barns and unable to race.

“Going into Christmas last year, we were 16 percent up in handle and a horse and a half up in starters per race,” racing secretary Scott Jones said. “We were just getting rolling at the time. Our Churchill Downs horses get here the first week of December. We were about to take off.”

From all appearances, the momentum lost last December has picked right up again this year, and Fair Grounds begins an 81-day 2017-18 race meet Saturday full of optimism.

“I’m feeling that way for sure,” said Jones, who’s in his second year as racing secretary following Jason Boulet’s promotion to director of racing. “Really, I can’t say it being any other way. If you look at the trainers we lost compared to the trainers we picked up, it’s night and day.”

Fair Grounds had about 3,200 applications for stalls this season, close to 500 more than for the 2016-17 meet. Fifty-five new trainers applied for stalls, and 20 outfits that weren’t stabled here last season were granted them. Buff Bradley, Rodolphe Brisset, Chris Hartman, Eddie Kenneally, Anthony Rini, Mike Tomlinson, and Ian Wilkes are among the trainers with Fair Grounds strings this winter who didn’t have horses here last year.

Standard race weeks run Thursday through Sunday, but there are several five-day weeks scattered through a meet that ends March 31. Jones said cards early in the season will be nine races on weekdays and 10 on weekends before increasing by a race per card when the full equine population has arrived for the winter. Average daily overnight purses are expected to start between $240,000 and $250,000.

The jockey colony also has swelled to include a deep group of riders. Corey Lanerie returns for the first time in years, while Joe Bravo will spend his first winter in New Orleans. Jamie Theriot is back at Fair Grounds after a stint in California, while the California-based Chantal Sutherland is here for the first time. The English rider Adam Beschizza has joined the colony, as have Declan Cannon, Chris Emigh, and Jack Gilligan. The top seven riders from last meet – Florent Geroux, Robby Albarado, Mitchell Murrill, James Graham, Miguel Mena, Shaun Bridgmohan, and Gabriel Saez – return for this season.

The Kentucky-based jockeys won’t settle in until the Churchill Downs meet ends later this month, nor will a great number of the horses who will race here this winter. One fairly famous one already on the grounds is Gun Runner, who will soon move from daily jogs to gallops as he prepares for his career finale in the Pegasus World Cup.

Gun Runner two years ago prepped for the Triple Crown by winning the Risen Star Stakes and the Louisiana Derby, and those races anchor two of the three major stakes cards this season, Louisiana Derby Preview Day on Feb. 17 and Louisiana Derby Day on March 24. The Lecomte Stakes anchors Road to the Derby Kickoff Day on Jan. 13.

Four $50,000 Louisiana-bred stakes highlight Saturday’s opening-day card (the lone program until Thanksgiving) which has a late first post of 3 p.m. Central. Among the stakes, preps for Louisiana Champions Day on Dec. 9, is the Happy Ticket for older female dirt sprinters, which could be the deepest of the four races and is headlined by Wheatfield, Sunny Oak, and My Miss Chiff.

Wheatfield and Sunny Oak finished one-two last year in the Champions Day Ladies Sprint, after which their paths diverged. Wheatfield left the barn of trainer Danny Pish for an ambitious open stakes campaign, while Sunny Oak had a three-start summer campaign in Louisiana, easily winning a statebred-restricted stakes Aug. 5 at Louisiana Downs in her most recent start.

“In August I kind of give everybody a break, and she had a couple weeks at the farm,” trainer Eddie Johnston said of Sunny Oak. “She’s working super and doing super.”

My Miss Chiff, a 3-year-old, returns from an even longer break and makes her first start since finishing third in the Grade 3 Miss Preakness on May 19.

“There wasn’t a thing wrong with her, but we gave her time off to be ready for Louisiana-bred winter campaign, and she’s been right on target,” trainer Al Stall said. “She’s a tiger, but it’s a really tough race.”

This whole Fair Grounds meet, in fact, could be really tough, but that is a good thing.