Salt Bae might be part of big day for Flint

Bernie Flint has been training horses at Fair Grounds for literally 50 years. Chris Davis has been training horses anywhere since only 2016. The pair have roots in totally different eras but their horses in the featured seventh race Sunday at Fair Grounds are going to the same place.

Student Body, trained by Davis, will use her ample speed from her rail draw in this third-level dirt-sprint allowance restricted to females and open to $80,000 claimers. Flint’s horse, Salt Bae, also favors forward position. She’s positively drawn outside Student Body, but might not be as quick as her pace rival – which is not to say she’s not dangerous.

Flint, a 79-year-old former New Orleans police officer, scored his first win as a trainer when he won a Fair Grounds race in 1969. Davis, who grew up on the racetrack in Chicago, was at that point two decades from even being conceived. Flint’s Fair Grounds success has waxed and waned, but after a tough 2016-2017 season he won 13 races during the 2017-2018 stand and at this meet is a strong 7-2-2 from 23 starters. One of those winners is Salt Bae herself, who went to the front in a second-level allowance Feb. 2 and never came close to being headed.

Salt Bae has two wins and two seconds from her four Fair Grounds starts. While Student Body makes her local debut, she’s hit a higher mark than Salt Bae. Student Body clearly has issues that compromise her from time to time, but when she’s been good, she’s been very good, reaching a 94 Beyer Speed Figure two summers ago on the Ellis Park dirt, and a 90 last summer over Arlington Polytrack.

Flint has entrants Sunday in two other allowance races, both of the first-level variety and carded for turf.

In race 2 he sends out Ace Destroyer, a 3-year-old who debuted on dirt with a front-running one-length victory Jan. 4. Ace Destroyer is by Country Day, a good sire of grass sprinters, and this 5 1/2-furlong grass dash might suit him. But Ace Destroyer, if he goes to the front, is likely to take pace pressure from the more experienced colt Philosophy, and the pick to run them down is Soap Bubble.

Soap Bubble makes his first grass start and should like the new surface. He exits a win over 10 maidens, and his trainer, Bret Calhoun, finally has come alive after a tough start to the New Orleans season.

Race 8 has the same conditions as race 2 – it’s a first-level allowance with a $50,000 claiming option for 3-year-olds on turf – but is carded at about one mile around two turns. Flint’s entrant is an Indiana-bred named Squadron Commander, who seems much less plausible than his other Sunday runners, and here, again, the selection is a Calhoun-trained horse.

Most Mischief had a relatively busy 2-year-old campaign, and overcame trouble in his Churchill maiden win last September. He improved considerably when Calhoun put him on turf for the first time in a Jan. 11 Fair Grounds sprint, where Most Mischief had trouble at the start and mid-race yet still finished with encouraging energy. He has a turf-miler’s pedigree and could be set for a career best.

◗ Race 6 is a welcome new item on the Fair Grounds racing menu, a long-distance turf race over 1 9/16 miles. Fair Grounds rarely cards grass races at even 1 1/8 miles, and this will be the first local race run at the distance since 2016 and just the second since 2002.