Stall finally gets plugged in at Fair Grounds

New Orleans native son Al Stall had his best day of the 2020-21 Fair Grounds season this past Saturday, when he sent out sharp 3-year-old maiden winner He’s in Charge and cut back the turf filly In Good Spirits to good effect.

He’s in Charge, a 3-year-old Candy Ride colt, debuted Dec. 11 at Turfway Park and apparently loathed the synthetic surface there, finishing a distant eighth. Sent to Stall, switched to dirt, and racing on Lasix for the first time, He’s in Charge made an entirely different appearance in his Jan. 30 start, coming through along the inside to post a 3 1/4-length victory over well-meant first-time starter Tulane Tryst while running six furlongs in a fast 1:09.81. That raw time produced a 91 Beyer Speed Figure.

“He definitely had trained nicely on the dirt,” Stall said. “Before Turfway he’d been at Woodbine, and I think they liked the way he trained on the dirt training track there. He’s a typical Candy Ride, not that big, well balanced and all that.”

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There’s a lot of speed in He’s in Charge’s female family, and Stall said he’d point for a first-level sprint allowance race, perhaps sometime in March.

As for In Good Spirits, she equaled her career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 87 capturing a second-level turf-sprint allowance (with a $40,000 claiming option) by one length, finishing with good energy while racing from sixth place. In Good Spirits hadn’t sprinted since her career debut in August 2019 at Saratoga.

“It’s impossible to look at a horse from training and say, ‘This is a come-from-behind sprinter,’ ” Stall said. “As hard as she tried going long, we decided to see if she had that late punch going short.”

Fair Grounds has a bevy of filly-and-mare turf sprint stakes on their schedule, but In Good Spirits has missed the first three of them, and the Feb. 16 Mardi Gras, the last such race this season, probably comes up too quick for her.