Fair Grounds: Dubious Miss ready to go

David P. Holloway Racing’s Dubious Miss will get another shot at Andrews T & S Racing’s Mr. Vegas in Saturday’s Grade III, $125,000 Fair Grounds Handicap. Dubious Miss was slowly gaining ground on Mr. Vegas in the stretch run of last month’s Grade III Colonel E.R. Bradley Handicap but checked slightly when the leader came out, an incident that jockey Corey Lanerie claimed afterwards may have cost him the race. Following a lengthy deliberation, an objection was disallowed.

“It could’ve gone our way, I felt,” trainer Paul McGee said Monday morning, one month after the Bradley. “Usually when it takes that long you expect a change. We watched it 100 times and at that point you’re thinking they’re going to change it but they left it.”

McGee likes the way Dubious Miss is coming up to Saturday’s race, but this time he’ll face not only Mr. Vegas, but several new shooters, including last year’s Grade II Mervin H. Muniz Memorial winner Smart Bid.

“I don’t know if we can beat those horses or not but we’re going into this race the right way,” he said.

Dubious Miss worked five furlongs in 1:01 4/5 on Monday with Lanerie aboard.

“That’s about his standard breeze, 1:01 and change,” McGee said. “It was about what we were looking for. But isn’t that what trainers always say?”

One strong point for Dubious Miss is that the 8-year-old gelding has never missed the board in five starts over Fair Grounds’ Stall-Wilson turf course.

“Even though he’s only got one lifetime win on the grass he’s run well on it, and he’s always run well on this grass course,” McGee noted. “He threw in a clunker at Churchill and I still don’t know why he ran so badly that day but both of his races down here have been really good.”