Several Look Good for Classic Stakes

In what looks to be shaping up to be a fairly competitive race, String King has been made the 7-2 morning-line favorite for Saturday’s running of the $150,000 Louisiana Champions Day Classic Stakes at Fair Grounds. The race will go 1 1/8 miles on the dirt, and is one of seven stakes races on the day offering champion titles for Louisiana-bred horses. A five-year-old gelding, the question with String King will be the surface. A proven winner on turf, he’s three-of-six on dirt, out of a total of 11 lifetime wins. He hasn’t run on dirt since July of 2102 when he won an of-the-turf allowance event.

String King comes in on a hot streak

He comes into this having won three of his last four, finishing second in the other, including winning last time out only three weeks ago in the Mr. Sulu Stakes at Fair  Grounds. Earlier this year he had a second and a third in a pair of Grade III races. Looming as his biggest threat at 5-2 the the three-year-old colt Sunbeam, who has won four of eight this year, getting up late to take the Gold Cup Stakes at one mile in his last outing.

Skip the Pinot looms on the inside

Third in that race was Populist Politcs, and he’s back here and listed at 3-1. Previous to that, he came from mid-pack into the stretch for a driving win in the Louisiana Legends Classic Stakes. In with a shot and listed at 10-1 is the three-year-old Skip the Pinot. Unraced as a juvenile, he’s hit the board in six of eight lifetime, with the most recent of his three wins coming two starts back in a 4 1/4 length score in the Louisiana Cup Derby at 1 1/16 miles.