Drosselmeyer out of Mineshaft Handicap
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WinStar Farm’s Drosselmeyer, winner of last
spring’s Belmont Stakes and the assigned top weight of 122 pounds in Saturday’s
Grade III Mineshaft Handicap at 1 1/16-miles over Fair Grounds’ main track,
will not now be coming to New Orleans,
according to Fair Grounds stakes coordinator Scott Jones.
“I’m told he spiked a temperature yesterday,” said Jones during training hours
Sunday morning.
Adele Dilschneider’s Apart, weighted at 120 pounds as the winner of Louisiana
Downs’ Grade II Super Derby and Churchill’s Grade III Ack Ack Handicap last
fall, is now expected to be the starting high weight in the Mineshaft Handicap,
middle jewel of Fair Grounds’ three-race series for older horses on the main
track.
The Mineshaft serves as the designed final major prep for the Grade II New
Orleans Handicap on Louisiana Derby Day March 26.
Others expected to contest the Mineshaft as of Sunday morning in order of
weight assignments were: Louie Roussel III and Ronnie Lamarque’s
Recapturetheglory (119), Twin Creeks Racing Stable’s Mission Impazible (118), Michael
Stinson’s Le Grand Cru (115), Zayat Stables’ Z Humor (115), Jim Tafel’s Fast
Alex (114) and Cudney Stables and John Gunther’s Midnight Mischief (113).
Recapturetheglory won the $60,000 Louisiana Handicap Jan. 22 as the first leg
of the main track series for older horses, and Mission Impazible won last
year’s Grade II Louisiana Derby.
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