The 5-year-old mare Oeuvre has won 13 of her 17 starts over the last two calendar years. She easily won the $100,000 Nelson J. Menard Memorial last January at Fair Grounds. But Oeuvre did not come close to winning her most recent race, and since bettors generally overvalue last-out performance, Oeuvre might be a fair price as she tries to repeat in the Menard on Saturday. Oeuvre is one of nine entrants in the Menard, a 5 1/2-furlong turf sprint for fillies and mares that’s one of three stakes on the Saturday program. The track’s morning-line pegs her as the second choice at 7-2 and has Carimba as the 3-1 favorite – and that would make Oeuvre an easy play. Carimba did win her most recent start, the Nov. 25 Pan Zareta, another Fair Grounds turf sprint. But that was the first stakes victory for Carimba, a 6-year-old who has raced only 10 times during a career that began in August 2020. Layoff lines, including a break between April 2021 and August 2022, litter Carimba’s past performances. She hardly is the sort of horse worth trusting at a short price to pair up peak performances, and even if she does, Oeuvre will beat her with a return to her standard form. :: Bet the races with a $200 First Deposit Match + FREE All Access PPs! Join DRF Bets. Oeuvre wins a lot because she runs a lot: A year younger than Carimba, she has made 18 more trips to the post. After going for more than a year without a break from racing, Oeuvre had slipped a notch this past May and finally was given some time off. She has won three of her four post-layoff starts, but only one was a turf sprint, Oeuvre’s preferred type of race. At Hawthorne in July, Oeuvre won a dirt sprint, a springboard to a rich Kentucky Downs sprint allowance race win in September. At Keeneland in October, Oeuvre saw out a turf mile without loving the two-turn trip, and on Nov. 18 at Churchill, Oeuvre ran well below her best form trying a one-turn dirt mile in the Chilukki Stakes. As versatile as Oeuvre has been, a dirt-router she is not. If Oeuvre has lost anything since her two-length Menard win last year, it’s not evident in her work pattern. The mare, trained by Chris Block for her breeder, Richard Perkins, has worked four times since arriving in late November at Fair Grounds, and her five-furlong drill in 1:00.60 was second-fastest of 74 at the distance on Dec. 23. Jareth Loveberry, aboard for nine of Oeuvre’s wins, has the mount. The race, improbably, attracted shippers from California and Florida. Brandon’smylawyer, a pace rival for Carimba, shipped from Santa Anita for trainer Peter Eurton. Poppy Flower, a more likely winner, traveled from Bill Mott’s base at Payson Park. Poppy Flower in 2022 showed capability over 5 1/2 furlongs, but her 2023 form suggests a mare who has grown to require a longer sprint distance to hit her peak. Free Like a Girl heads Wright Free Like a Girl, a winner of 10 stakes during 2022-23, stands a good chance of beating morning-line favorite Ova Charged in the $100,000 Bob Wright Memorial Stakes for Louisiana-bred older fillies and mares. Free Like a Girl exits a sharp score going two turns last month in the Louisiana Champions Day Ladies, but the 5-year-old, a 15-time winner with more than $1 million in earnings, sports a 4-2-1 record from eight starts at Saturday’s six-furlong trip, including a victory in the 2023 Wright. Ova Charged has hit a higher mark than Free Like a Girl, finishing second at the Grade 3 level, but the 6-year-old declined precipitously earlier this year and didn’t race between April and December. She eked out a win in the Champions Day Ladies Sprint on Dec. 9 but has not posted a timed workout since that start. ◗ Mangum faces six foes in the $100,000 Gary P. Palmisano Memorial, the brother race to the Wright, and beat five of them when he rallied from 13th to capture the Champions Day Sprint. Mangum ran his final furlong that day in a snappy 12.33 seconds, and the Sprint was only his second one-turn start in a 12-race career. Mangum’s chief rival is Bron and Brow, second in the Champions Day Sprint breaking from post 14 in his first start since July. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.