By MIKE WELSCH
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Trainer Todd Pletcher completed what he termed a career-best afternoon, even by his lofty standards, after Scat Daddy surged past Stormello in the final strides to post a nose decision in Saturday's Grade 2, $350,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park.
The win was the fifth on the card and third Grade 2 stakes victory for Pletcher, who earlier captured the Hutcheson with King of the Roxy and the Richter Scale Handicap with Half Ours.
Tuesday is the slowest racing day of the week across the United States, so few national fans will notice the start of the 2007 Fairmount Park racing season. But Fairmount and the group of horsemen who still call it home are happy just to be back in business for another year.
Each year, racing in the St. Louis area sees at least a slight erosion in an already tenuous racing landscape. Fairmount got some help from legislation granting tax relief last year, but Brian Zander, Fairmount's general manager, said that kind of assistant would only keep the ship afloat.
NEW ORLEANS - Trainer Todd Pletcher is driving a herd of stakes winners into Louisiana this week for Louisiana Derby Day. Pletcher has horses for each of the four Grade 2 stakes races on Saturday's five-stakes card.
The five stakes, worth $2.1 million collectively, make this the richest day of racing in Louisiana history, and trainers are shipping in from both coasts to compete.
"The California shippers are arriving Tuesday," said stakes coordinator Brook Hawkins, "and the Florida-based horses come in Wednesday."
Baghdaria was a dominant, 7 1/4-length winner of Friday night's $75,000 Sweetheart at Delta Downs, her first start since the Breeders' Cup Distaff in November. The race is expected to serve as her stepping-stone to the Grade 1, $500,000 Apple Blossom Handicap next month at Oaklawn Park.
"That's what's on the book right now," winning trainer Tom Amoss had said earlier this week.
Baghdaria led throughout in the Sweetheart to win over Superb Ravi, who finished 3 1/2 lengths clear of third-place finisher No Sleep.
NEW ORLEANS - The eighth race on Saturday's Fair Grounds card is a second-level optional claimer for older horses at a mile and 40 yards on the main track that drew a stakes-caliber field.
Mean Butterbean, second to Costa Rising in the Louisiana Premier Champions and the Louisiana Classic, is only in here because his victories against statebreds don't count against him in the conditions of the race.
Canela has won six starts in a row for leading trainer Tom Amoss, showing remarkable versatility on dirt, turf, and off tracks - and at distances from a mile to 1 1/2 miles.
ARCADIA, Calif. - At a time when most Triple Crown prospects are running in stakes, Air Commander and Family Talk are behind schedule. They make their first starts in an allowance race at Santa Anita on Sunday.
The two 3-year-olds were impressive maiden winners earlier this year, making them outside candidates for the major stakes in April. Both need to run well in Sunday's ninth race at 1 1/8 miles at Santa Anita to have any chance of making such races.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Trainer John Servis has made a lot of noise at Oaklawn Park in the last three years, winning graded stakes with the high-profile horses Smarty Jones, Round Pond, and Rockport Harbor. But this meet, his stable has been unusually quiet. Servis is rebuilding these days, less than a year after splitting with one of his major clients, Rick Porter of Fox Hill Farm.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - The Grade 1 winner Einstein will leave town for his next start, but the destination will not be Dubai.
Instead, trainer Helen Pitts plans to ship Einstein to New Orleans for next Saturday's Grade 2, $500,000 Mervin H. Muniz Jr. Memorial Handicap at the Fair Grounds. Pitts will use that race as a way to get to the Grade 1 Woodford Reserve at Churchill Downs on May 5, Kentucky Derby Day.
Eddie Razo is neck and neck for leading rider at the ongoing Oaklawn Park meet, and Larry Sterling is winning races there, too. Ramsey Zimmerman is having a solid Fair Grounds meet, Jesse Campbell an even better one. All these are Chicago riders, but the leading Chicago rider - meet in and meet out, these days - is Chris Emigh. Nevertheless, Emigh could be found this week plying his trade for less purse money, less prestige, and under much, much more difficult weather conditions, at Hawthorne Race Course.
"Yeah, I would've liked to have gone somewhere," said Emigh.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Robbie Bailes has all his eggs in the Gotham Stakes basket with Mint Slewlep.
Bailes, a Bowie-based trainer, doesn't have a backup plan in the event that the New York Racing Association fails to lift the ban on horses from four Mid-Atlantic states due to concerns over possible exposure to equine herpesvirus, a highly contagious neurological disease.
On Feb. 24, NYRA barred horses from Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Delaware until further notice.
