Walsh seeking big day with Plus Que Parfait, Grandaria
NEW ORLEANS – Trainer Brendan Walsh won four stakes races during 2018. It’s not outlandish imagining him winning four Saturday at Fair Grounds.
Walsh has a quartet of stakes entrants for the six-stakes Road to the Derby Kickoff card, all with a legitimate claim on contention. Dubara is 7-2 on the morning line for the $75,000 Marie Krantz Memorial, while Honorable Duty is listed at 5-2 for the $75,000 Louisiana Stakes. Then come the 3-year-olds: the filly Grandaria rates a strong chance in the $150,000 Silverbulletday Stakes, and the colt Plus Que Parfait is a prime player in the Grade 3, $200,000 Lecomte.
The Lecomte gets top billing on the 14-race card (first post, 12:30 p.m. Central) because this is the crazy season for 3-year-olds, and Walsh comes into 2019 with one of the better-looking prospects in America’s midsection. Plus Que Parfait (French for “more than perfect”) made four starts at age 2, finishing third in an Ellis Park maiden turf route and third in a one-turn Churchill Downs mile before graduating at Keeneland on Oct. 7 in a two-turn dirt race. Walsh jumped him up to the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes, and despite a challenging trip Plus Que Parfait finished second of 14, beaten a neck by Signalman.
Plus Que Parfait, owned by Imperial Racing, raced at the front in his first two dirt starts but rallied from 11th in the KJC after Julien Leparoux (who comes in from Florida to ride Saturday) snatched him back from an impending jam-up into the first turn.
“He’s done really well since the Jockey Club,” said Walsh. “We got a little held up with the rain here, but it’s early and it’s a long year. He’s a pretty active horse. He gets plenty out of his training. He’s an easy horse like that, as straightforward as they come. He doesn’t carry a ton of weight the way he’s made.”
Plus Que Parfait is by Point of Entry and out of the Awesome Again mare Belvedera, and after failing to reach a mere $24,000 auction reserve as a weanling, he sold for $135,000 as a yearling. Point of Entry was a long-winded turf star but a horse with plenty of dirt on the female side of his pedigree, while Plus Que Parfait’s own family is laden with stamina influences.
“He won’t have any distance limitations,” Walsh said.
That also applies to Grandaria, a daughter of Smart Strike out of the A.P. Indy mare Bag of Jewelz for whom owners Wayne Sanders and Larry Hirsch paid $170,000 at a yearling sale. Whereas Plus Que Parfait faces 13 in the Lecomte, Grandaria takes on only six in the Silverbulletday, and if modest Beyer Speed Figures inflate her price, all the better for her supporters.
Grandaria debuted in a turf race, but not because Walsh believed she was a grass horse.
“I always thought she was a dirt filly,” he said. “I just started her on grass, as I often do with fillies that want to go long. It’s a nicer experience for them.”
Seventh in her first start, Grandaria came back to capture an off-the-turf Churchill maiden route by more than four lengths in the slop and repeated Dec. 21 at Fair Grounds with a 2 1/2-length first-level allowance win over Cosmic Code and Street Band, who formed the exacta Sunday while coming back at the same level.
Grandaria paired 67 Beyers for her two wins, but there was no way she could’ve run fast coming from well off the pace in races where the half-mile split was slower than 49 seconds, a tepid fraction.
“At Churchill, she did everything the hard way, getting back in the kickback, and then went around them all,” said Walsh. “Last time, she was drawn wide, and even though she broke good, we took back to cut in and save the ground. I don’t think she necessarily has to come from way out of it. She might be closer than you think.”
And sure, everything would have to fall perfectly into place, but Walsh might be closer than one might think to a four-win stakes day.
