Fair Grounds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

YAHOOO!!!!

I would encourage everyone to follow Fair Grounds this winter.
After the tragedy that closed them for a year, they are back and running.
They open Thanksgiving Day and I just went through tomorrow's DRF and smiled. You can see why many players have loved the place and made it their primary winter betting base in recent years.
Although they run many La-bred races(have to by state law) and claimers, they run a lot of grass races and always get good field sizes.
Very good article online in which the track super was interviewed and described the surface and how he worked it back into shape and how he feels its the same as it was before the floods.
The main track at the FG was always very fair overall, it has biases just like any other surface on certain days but the long stretch gives horses a chance to run down speed as well.
Good solid trainer base as well. Instead of being top heavy with one or two guys who dominate and take too much money, they have at least 20 guys who are in the 12-20% range on the year, who are all capable of winning races with horses. Calhoun, Bourgeois, Blasi, Amoss, Mouton, Stall Jr., Tassitro, Rayburn, Autrey, Richards, Stidham, Leggio, Johnston Jr., Werner, Hodges, Breaux, Pitzer, and many more can be bet with confidence in the right spot.
The purses are also very high. This is great for bettors as well as the higher the purse, the less chicanery you can expect. Its simple really, the greater the incentive everyone has to win, the harder they try.
Its truly a great place to place to play in the wintertime.
Start following it now and building up a memory bank of trip and bias notes, and cash in this winter.

I also used to like to bet FG. I am usually very cautious at first. Once you have identified the trainers who have their charges "ready to run". Then you can often find tons of value. For some reason it seems like certain trainers "find" that little something extra to help their stable there. In any event, it is a good value track.

There can be only one.

Plus there are something like 103 horses entered to race on Thursday's 10 race card. Full fields is something that I love and love to see.

The place is just great to bet on.
Too many racing jurisdictions have one or two trainers that rule the roost, and make betting every hard. You are damned if you do and damned if you don't.
Parity exists at this place, no dominant super jocks or super trainers who win all the time.
You look at a race and you often see that 75% of the field has a chance to run 1-2. Thats what leads to value, that and large fields. You can get some crazy good pik-3 and pik-4 payouts there.
Get into it early and start following the biases and trips. You will be rewarded I can assure you, if you do the homework.

Definately a pick 3 haven. I love the pick 3's there. I also love the LA Bred races for some reason. They always seem to be so evenly matched.

Seems like every opening day at Fairgrounds a few bombs come in. This year should be no different.

Look, anytime you put up ridiculously high purses for any state breds, guys are gonna be trying like hell to win.
The La-bred purses in MSW's this year appear to be 42,500 bucks.
This means the winning owner gets 60% of that with a winning horse, which is 25,500 bucks!!!!! Even after he pays the jock and trainer there 10% of that, which is 2550 to each, the owner still clears 20,400 bucks. The 2550 to the owner and jockey ain't too shabby either.
Higher purses are great for the bettor even if don't most realize it. The more money the players are going after, the harder they try.
So many players are leery of chicanery, and rightly so. But when you give the players more incentive to try and get paid by winning, you eliminate many facets of chicanery.
Chicanery most often stems(lets take harness races as an example) from the players having more incetive to cash a bet than take what they can rightfully earn.
If you are a jock or trainer or owner and looking at a big payday for winning a race, you don't care about cashing a bet, you just wanna win the damn race.
Opening day purses at the FG are 352,000 total, which is an average of 35,200 per race.
Anybody wanna bet that Gulf's opening day average purse per race is less?

You are exactly correct and I agree 100%. Oracle you may remember this but whatever happened to that one harness race (I believe it was harness) where a $100 horse and another mid-long shot horse came in 1-2 and the exacta paid like $30. I think it happend like 2 - 3 months ago and someone posted it on this board. Do you remember reading something like that?

It was me first. I swear.

Is there another track that will offer a 5k st bred maiden and a graded stakes rice in the same card? They offer something for all. The dirt surface has always been praised as a very safe surface. I hope the turf is better than it was when we were last there, a lot of bare spots painted to look like grass.

Pink Duck is prolly retired and headed to stud I hope. The Beter Man Can is a thrill to watch.

Zarb's Dahar, breaking from the outside in the opening day feature, is such a nifty horse. He has his work cut out for him, but that race should be exciting.

Every track has to offer claimers, everybody's gotta eat and the owners and trainers who train those horses need sufficient spots with which to race their investment. No argument there from me.
But like you said, FG splices in allowance and grass races and stakes on weekends with these claimers. Their cards are balanced and because they mix up the condition book, you don't get the same exact horses meeting each other every two weeks at the same distance(cough cough cough Gulfstream cough cough).
Its the variety and balance and liberal use of the grass course that makes the place a real treat to follow and bet.

Anything with 'Zarb' in its name is a contender in La-bred races. <grin>

I think you're right. Wasn't it a horse named Zarb's Magic that won the Arkansas Derby one year, beating the eventual Kentucky Derby winner, Grindstone?

Yup, he was the one. Won Arkansas Derby-G2, Risen Star S-L, Louisiana Breeders Derby, Cresecent City Derby (latter two for La-breds); 2nd Louisiana Derby-G3; 3rd Alabama Derby-G3 at3. A gelding, he ran 8 seasons, won 23 of 69 starts.

definitely my favorite track within driving distance.

Its been a while since I was there(for obvious reasons), but I want to go back.
im just a little hesitant to go anywhere near NOrleans.

I will go to SAM this weekend and play FG for sure though.

I hope the big trainers support FG's triple crown trail races this year.
I assume the Lecomte, Risen Star, and LA Derby will all be run this year.

they even have a race named after one of our board members if I remember correctly.
the Dixie Poker Stakes or something.



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