Wells Bayou could run back in Arkansas Derby

Brad Cox won another Fair Grounds training title and nearly swept the graded-stakes races on Saturday at Fair Grounds, capturing the Louisiana Derby with Wells Bayou, the Fair Grounds Oaks with Bonny South, and the Muniz Memorial with Factor This.

All three horses came out of their respective races in good physical condition, said Cox, who described Wells Bayou on Sunday as “a little tired.” Wells Bayou, who got a 91 Beyer Speed Figure winning his first stakes race, could run back May 2 in the $750,000 Arkansas Derby, Cox said.

“Everything seems hour to hour right now,” Cox said, referring to the coronavirus pandemic. “That race could be an option. It’s either that or who knows what.”

Wells Bayou won a first-level allowance race at Oaklawn and finished second there to Silver Prospector in the Southwest Stakes before shipping to New Orleans. Wells Bayou, by Lookin At Lucky, has shown himself to be productive strong-galloping type performer, with good speed and the ability to sustain his pace over a route of grounds. Saturday’s win, under Florent Geroux, came at 1 3/16 miles.”

“Florent did a good job of establishing position early,” Cox said. “I felt like he had a lot of horse left at the quarter pole.”

While Wells Bayou did all his work on the lead, Bonny South and Geroux were last turning for home before swooping past five rivals to win the Fair Grounds Oaks. Bonny South, who got a career-best 85 Beyer, won her first stakes and has won both her starts since Cox began racing her in blinkers. Juddmonte Farms bred and owns Bonny South, a daughter of Munnings, and Bonny South, up until their respective debuts last fall at Churchill Downs, was the regular workmate of the fabulously talented 3-year-old filly Taraz. Taraz, another Juddmonte homebred, won her first three starts before breaking down in a February workout, sustaining injuries too severe for her to be saved.

“They worked together just about every day up until their first race, and they debuted on the same day,” Cox said.

Cox said he’d talk with Bonny South’s connections before making any final decision, but his barn already has two horses, British Idiom and Shedaresthedevil, pointed to the Fantasy Stakes at Oaklawn.

Factor This has turned into a tiger this season on the Fair Grounds grass course, following up on a front-running win in the Fair Grounds Stakes on Feb. 15 with another dominant display of speed in the Muniz, where he led from start to finish under Shaun Bridgmohan, winning by three lengths and posting a career-best 104 Beyer. With all the current disruption in North American racing, Cox said he had no idea when and where Factor This might start again.

Cox didn’t have a runner in the fourth graded stakes on the Saturday card, the New Orleans Classic, which was impressively won by By My Standards, who posted a comfortable three-length victory and got a 98 Beyer. By My Standards won the Louisiana Derby in 2019 but after a 12th-place Kentucky Derby finish missed the rest of last season as an injured hoof was given plenty of time to heal and grow out. By My Standards returned to racing with an easy February allowance-race win at Fair Grounds for Chester Thomas’s Allied Racing Stable and trainer Bret Calhoun and stepped forward nicely Saturday.

“It was a pretty impressive race, but it looked like he did it well within himself, and that’s how he looked physically this morning,” Calhoun said Sunday.

By My Standards is a likely runner May 2 at Oaklawn Park in the $600,000 Oaklawn Handicap.

“One of my biggest goals this year is to win a Grade 1, and I have to see what leads me to that, but the [Oaklawn Handicap] looks good timing-wise,” said Calhoun.