Fair Grounds Racetrack

Trainer Mike Stidham, who recorded the highest earnings mark of his 34-year career in 2023, got the new year off to a quick start when Godolphin's Heckled (Hard Spun) broke her maiden in the eighth race at Fair Grounds Monday. The  conditioner has a pair of promising newly turned 3-year-olds who could help keep the momentum going in 2024. Godolphin homebred Central Avenue (Street Sense), a first-out winner at Colonial Downs last August, was second in the Oct. 7 GI Frizette S. and, most recently, third in the Nov. 25...

From his desk in the racing office, Stuart Slagle views stakes coordination as a vocation that is part sales and part diplomacy, but for him, it is also part science. As a former academic who received a B.S. in Zoology at the University of Texas in Austin and studied biophysics at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana before working with supercomputers as a system engineer, his approach to filling a stakes race is always interspersed with the scientific method and predictive analytics. "There is nothing like pursuing the science of...

Former jockey and horse aftercare advocate Rosie Napravnik will join Fair Grounds host Joe Kristufek on the live feed for "New Vocations Day at the Races" at the New Orleans venue, the track announced on Tuesday. Napravnik, who won four titles at the Fair Grounds, will help build awareness, promote success stories, and inspire donations for Thoroughbred aftercare throughout the racing card. "Rosie is one of our favorites and it's great to have her back at the Fair Grounds to help shed light on such an important cause and to...

The name of brilliant 1-21 Aqueduct winner A LONGLONGTIMEAGO  (c, 3, Maclean's Music--Carried Away, by Dixie Union) is another direct quotation from Don McLean's 1971 legendary song "American Pie"--just like DAY THE MUSIC DIED, another winning horse by Maclean's Music commented upon in this column. In the case of the name of this brave 3-year-old colt, the line in question is the very first, and magic, verse: A long, long time ago I can still remember how that music Used to make me smile And I knew if I had...