Two allowances top Sunday card at Fair Grounds
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLE
There are just eight races carded Sunday at Fair Grounds, but the heart of the program has substance.
Race 5 is a second-level turf-sprint allowance with a $40,000 claiming option for fillies and mares, while race 6 is a first-level, two-turn dirt allowance race for 3-year-old fillies – a softer spot for young talent not quite ready for next weekend’s Silverbulletday Stakes.
Trainer Brad Cox might have the right horse for both.
In race 5, Cox tries Good Move on turf for the first time, and the 4-year-old filly stands a decent chance of taking to the surface. She’s by Broken Vow, a decent grass influence, and her dam, Change Up, equaled her career-best Beyer Speed Figure, a 96, winning the lone grass race of her career. Good Move won her debut and a first-level allowance race last winter at Oaklawn Park, but things went amiss thereafter. She finished up the track on a sloppy surface in the Miss Preakness Stakes in May, didn’t start again until November, and again failed to fire on a wet dirt track, this time at Churchill Downs. Good Move has been posting fast works at Fair Grounds and with a decent break under Shaun Bridgmohan should be prominent from the start.
Cox entered two 3-year-old fillies in race 6 – Dora Maar was just claimed for $30,000 on Dec. 20 and looks like the B team behind Cox’s other filly, Cosmic Code. Cosmic Code, a Juddmonte Farms homebred by Into Mischief out of Touch the Star, debuted on grass, but won her maiden second out on dirt, easily beating 11 rivals in a Nov. 25 Churchill route. She returned at Fair Grounds on Dec. 21 in a first-level dirt-route allowance and after slogging along on a contested pace was run down late by Grandaria, a likely player in the Silverbulletday.
Broadway Cat and Street Band look like the main competition, though the Louisiana-bred Fugitive Lady won a statebred-restricted maiden race Dec. 1 at Fair Grounds by a startling 18 1/4 lengths.
