Wet track would be fine with Geothermal in Thursday feature

Likes Fair Grounds? Check. Runs on wet tracks? Check. Fires as a fresh horse? Check again. Geothermal is ticking off all the potentially applicable boxes and appears to be the most likely winner of the featured ninth race Thursday at Fair Grounds – provided, of course, that there’s racing on Thursday at Fair Grounds.

The National Weather Service is predicting six to 10 inches of rain in the area this week, mainly between Wednesday and Saturday. Handicappers should prepare for turf races run on the main track – and remain alert to the possibility of a cancellation.

Dry tracks are fine for Geothermal, too, but he ran especially well in a pair of sloppy-track starts last summer, winning a Churchill allowance race and finishing second by a nose in the $103,000 Schaefer Memorial in July at Indiana Grand.

“They’re calling for rain, and he handles the mud really nice,” said Steve Margolis, who trains Geothermal for owner A.L. Luedtke.

Geothermal has the outside post among seven older horses entered to run one mile and 70 yards on the main track in a high-end allowance race that’s also open to $62,500 claimers, with only Go Go Rocket entered under the claiming option.

Geothermal, a 7-year-old coming off a career-best year, has finished first and second in his two Fair Grounds main-track starts, and when he was the runner-up in his only dirt race in New Orleans last meet, it was just as Geothermal was really coming into his own. Following his near miss in the Schaefer, he returned to win the Lukas Classic at Churchill over Departing and five others before going a bit over the top, capping his campaign with a sixth-place finish in the Grade 3 Fayette at Keeneland.

“Two years ago, the owners decided to castrate him and give him some time,” Margolis said of Geothermal’s late development. “He had some little nagging things, and when I brought him back, he was real enthusiastic. He’s a hard-trying horse that likes to run.”

Geothermal has logged six published works for his comeback run, and Margolis said Thursday’s race is no stepping-stone to a greater goal.

“He’s not a big, heavy horse,” Margolis said. “He’s pretty easy to get going again. He’s had some solid works, and I’m not just using this to get a race in him.”

On paper, there’s sufficient speed to give the late-running Geothermal a fair shot. Etruscan, Go Go Rocket, and Wireless Future all have front-running tendencies in routes. Etruscan, the son of Kentucky Oaks winner Proud Spell, was validated to some extent when the horse he edged in a second-level allowance last time out, S’marvelous, won at that condition last weekend. He lost ground all the way last out but has an inside draw and Florent Geroux this time.

Wireless Future, surprisingly, raced from off the pace when he finished sixth last out on turf in the Fair Grounds Handicap, and while he got an easy lead in winning a dirt allowance two back, Wireless Future might in the end be the horse Geothermal has to run down.

Race 10 on the 11-race program is a second-level filly-and-mare allowance with a $40,000 claiming option carded for 5 1/2 furlongs on turf but likely to wind up on the main track if the forecast holds. Angie’s Prim Lady won an off-turf sprint two starts ago at this same class level and has a recency edge on what might prove to be her primary rival on dirt, Anusara, who would be making her first start in nearly six months should she draw in from the also-eligible list.