Wide-Open Classic Headlines Louisiana Champions Card
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Photo: Coady Photography
Stakes winner Underpressure is among the field of seven for the Louisiana Champions Day Classic Stakes
A wide-open field of seven, including stakes winners Underpressure, Grande Basin, and Mageez, is set for the $150,000 Louisiana Champions Day Classic Stakes—the featured race on the Dec. 8 Louisiana Champions Day program at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots.
The 13-race Champions Day card (beginning with three Quarter Horse races) features seven stakes for Thoroughbreds, highlighted by the 1 1/8-mile Classic. With two-time defending race winner Mobile Bay retired, the path is clear for another state-bred to add more black type to his résumé.
Grande Basin and Underpressure were second and third, respectively, behind Mobile Bay in the 2017 edition of the race. That runner-up effort is a part of a 15-race losing skid William Deckwa Jr. and John Carbo's Grande Basin is attempting to snap. The 6-year-old Good and Tough gelding most recently finished second in the Nov. 16 Mr. Sulu Overnight Stakes on the turf at Fair Grounds.
Mallory Greiner's Underpressure, a 4-year-old son of Birdstone , has won two of 10 starts this season but has dropped his past five outings. The Chris Richard-trained colt enters off a sixth-place finish in the Nov. 17 Delta Mile Stakes at Delta Downs.
Double Dam Farm's Mageez also is trying to get back on the winning side of things. The 5-year-old son of Musket Man won an optional-claiming allowance race at Fair Grounds in February but has lost his seven starts since.
Other notable horses on the Champions Day program include the Al Stall-trained Minit to Stardom, who won her first three starts by open lengths, including a 7 1/4-length win in the Louisiana Champions Day Lassie Stakes at Fair Grounds last December. The daughter of Star Guitar was sixth in the Longines Test Stakes (G1) in August and, in her first start since that effort, is the 9-5 morning-line favorite for the $100,000 Ladies Sprint Stakes.
Grade 1-placed Givemeaminit, another offspring of Louisiana legend Star Guitar, is part of a field of 10 entered for the six-furlong, $100,000 Sprint Stakes.