Surface switch for feature would benefit Magnificent Margo

Provided the track hasn’t washed away, Fair Grounds will host an 11-race card Monday, the final Monday program of the 2015-16 race meeting.

New Orleans was spared the brunt of the early portion of a massive rain event streaming north into Louisiana and neighboring states from the Gulf of Mexico starting Thursday, but close to two inches of rain fell overnight Thursday into Friday, and if the forecast holds, up to another six inches could fall before the system moves out of the area Saturday night.

Even if the rainfall totals wind up in a more moderate range, it’s hard to imagine Fair Grounds conducting turf racing Monday, which means the featured ninth race would be moved from one mile on turf to a short-stretch mile on dirt. The feature is restricted to females, is open to second-level allowance horses or $40,000 claimers, and drew 11 entrants. There are nine in the field’s main body, and two more horses, Magnificent Margo and Miss Cobblestone, entered for the main track only.

Magnificent Margo would rate a solid chance if she gets in. She finished sixth last out in a Delta Downs stakes race but ran better two starts ago while making her dirt debut in a Fair Grounds first-level allowance that she won by nearly eight lengths.

My Love Venezuela hasn’t started since May, but she won a first-level dirt-route allowance at Louisiana Downs – her first dirt race following three grass starts – by nearly 18 lengths when last seen. Since turned over to trainer Brad Cox, she races with Lasix added and sports an encouraging work pattern for a barn having a great Fair Grounds meet.

Trainers’ race down to wire

Cox and Joe Sharp remain in the hunt for leading trainer at Fair Grounds, as does Mike Stidham, who also has entrants in the Monday feature, and Tom Amoss.

Stidham won one race Thursday to push his total to 29, one more than Amoss. Sharp also won a race Thursday, giving him 26 for the meet, while Cox had 25 winners through Thursday. All four barns figure to be active during the final two racing weeks of the season.

Stidham making stakes plans

Jessica’s Star’s strong comeback run Feb. 27 in the Maxxam Gold Cup at Sam Houston might have earned him a slot in the $400,000 New Orleans Handicap on March 26.

“We’re looking at that race,” trainer Mike Stidham said. “I don’t know if there are going to be monsters shipping in.”

Jessica’s Star hadn’t raced since being eased and vanned off the course last June in the Cornhusker Handicap. He battled to the wire in the Gold Cup and lost by a neck in his 5-year-old debut.

“He came off the shelf and ran fast. I thought that was an amazing effort,” Stidham said. “He went back to his 3-year-old numbers, which he hadn’t done at all as a 4-year-old.”

Plans haven’t been set yet for the talented mare Leigh Court, who won her 2016 debut in the Mardi Gras Stakes last month and will start next at Keeneland or Woodbine.

“The best way to keep her happy is to give her freshening between races, so we sent her to Folsom [Training Center] for a couple weeks, turned her out, and she just came back in,” Stidham said.

◗ The 4-year-old Unbridled’s Song colt Salengo ran his record to two wins from two starts by capturing a first-level turf-sprint allowance last Sunday but will return to dirt for the Commonwealth Stakes in April at Keeneland, trainer Jeff Engler said.