Stall considering options for Yockey's Warrior

Trainer Al Stall started the Fair Grounds meet on fire, and after an inevitable cooling-off period, he has maintained an excellent strike rate. Through last Sunday, Stall had won with 25 of his 86 starters at the meet, a 29 percent win rate.

Stall, who has been the leading trainer twice at Fair Grounds, won’t come near his career-best Fair Grounds win total, 42 in 1997-98, but if his stable’s form holds, he’ll finish the season at his home track with his highest win percentage since that meet. Stall, too, has been a boon to his backers, producing a $2.31 return on investment.

Now, Stall is contemplating where to next produce his crack sprinter Yockey’s Warrior, who is riding a three-race winning streak that includes bookend allowance races at Keeneland and Oaklawn and the Thanksgiving Handicap in between.

Yockey’s Warrior hasn’t worked since he won Feb. 17 at Oaklawn, but Stall said all is well and that Yockey’s Warrior will work this week.

“We haven’t done anything with him since his van ride except gallop,” Stall said. “He’ll either run in the Count Fleet at Oaklawn or the Commonwealth at Keeneland.”

One Stall horse who didn’t quite show his best was the 3-year-old Excitations, who was third Sunday as the odds-on favorite in an optional-claiming race at one mile and 70 yards. That race followed a narrow loss to Risen Star Stakes winner Girvin in his career debut and a sharp maiden special weight win. Excitations, by Into Mischief, tracked the pace Sunday in his two-turn debut but came up empty in the final furlong.

“He just didn’t seem to stay,” Stall said. “He’s a fullback-looking type horse.”

Excitations could run back in a first-level allowance race around one turn at Keeneland next month, Stall said.

◗ Ramona’s Wildcat, switched back to turf for the first time in more than a year, just missed getting up in a Louisiana-bred sprint allowance race Feb. 10, and with any luck, she will be up in time to capture the featured first race on Friday. Friday’s is the final evening program of the meet, with first post scheduled for 5 p.m. Central.