Sharp starts final week of the meet with training title in sight
?q=100)
The 49 winners trainer Joe Sharp put up during the 2017-18 and 2018-19 meets would’ve won most recent Fair Grounds training titles, but both seasons, Fair Grounds bests for Sharp, Brad Cox won 53. Training wins this meet have been more evenly distributed among the top trainers than the local historical norm, in part because Cox this past fall opened a major string at Payson Park in Florida. Cox has run as many as 207 horses during a Fair Grounds meet; this time, he might not hit 100.
That leaves Sharp with a two-winner lead over Cox, 31 to 29, entering the final week of the Fair Grounds meeting, and while training titles for Cox are a dime a dozen, Sharp has never won one in New Orleans. With horses in 17 races the rest of the meet, compared to 11 races for Cox, Sharp’s the favorite – and he has live chances Wednesday.
Sharp has horses for races 5, 6, and 7 and reasonably could expect to win all three, including the featured seventh, a turf sprint with a third-level allowance condition, another allowance condition for non-winners on turf the last six months, and an $80,000 claiming option.
Sharp entered Gilded Ruler for the $80,000 tag, while Kavod, the likely favorite under Jose Ortiz, has never won a turf race and thus, despite having won eight races and more than $900,000, can race under an allowance condition.
That’s the way it’s gone this season at Fair Grounds: Sharp always seems to have the right horses for the right races. He made the right call last month with Kavod. Sharp initially told Daily Racing Form he’d scratch Kavod from the Colonel Power Stakes if the race stayed on turf. It did, he wound up running Kavod, and the gelding, racing on grass for the first time in 14 months, set the pace before losing a photo finish.
Nearly 6-1 in the Colonel Power, Kavod on Thursday figures a third of that price. Of Sharp’s 131 Fair Grounds runners through March 16, 44 have gone favored. Ortiz has ridden many of those shorter prices, and from their last dozen favored starters, Ortiz and Sharp have gone 8-2-1.
Gilded Ruler, Axel Concepcion’s mount, does have bounce-back potential at a square price after a fifth in the Colonel Power. Rail-drawn Son of a Birch, trained by Tom Morley, drops from three stakes starts while returning from a three-month freshening. Sharp’s former boss, trainer Mike Maker, runs Ambivalent, claimed out of his most recent race for $50,000.
In race 6, Brian Hernandez Jr. rides likely favorite Sierra November for Sharp in a 3-year-old filly maiden dirt route. Sierra November in her second start, on Feb. 15, finished a distant fourth in a maiden sprint but ran into the meet’s sharpest filly maiden winner, the Cox-trained Velvet Vortex.
Sierra November tries something different, a route, as does the Sharp-trained Bosun in race 5. Bosun started twice last spring in New York-bred dirt sprint maidens and now, returning from an extended break, tries turf and two turns for the first time. By Midshipman, Bosun’s dam’s side is filled with grass runners, and Ortiz takes the call.
◗ Jockey Marcelino Pedroza Jr. suffered no consequential injuries when he fell during a race March 14, and, after missing his two mounts on that card as well as Sunday’s races, Pedroza was to resume riding Tuesday, according to his agent, Anthony Martin.
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.