Sharp mare Kathballu makes her 5-year-old bow in Big Easy

Five D Thoroughbreds’ Kathballu is arguably in career form as the daughter of Bluegrass Cat makes her 5-year-old bow as the mare to beat in Saturday’s $50,000 Big Easy Overnight Stakes at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots. The Kenny McPeek-trained chestnut charge tops a septet of female sprinters in the 5½-furlong event over the Stall-Wilson turf course.

 

Kathballu will be going after her third consecutive stakes victory in the state of Louisiana following an easy win last month in the $50,000 Pan Zareta Stakes over six furlongs on the Fair Grounds main track and a similarly dominant victory in the $75,000 Orleans Stakes four weeks prior over a two-turn seven-furlong trip at Delta Downs. She will be seeking her first victory over the turf and continuing a steady pattern of running increasingly shorter distances since finishing fourth three starts back in the one-mile Grade II Chilukki Stakes at Churchill Downs. With her lone turf attempt yielding a last-place finish in the Grade II Mrs. Revere Stakes two Novembers ago — albeit around two turns — she is not a shoo-in for victory here. Robby Albarado picks up the mount from the six-hole, as jockey Florent Geroux will be in Florida to ride in the Grade I $12,000,000 Pegasus World Cup Invitational aboard Zayat Stables’ Prayer for Relief. 

 

While Joe Sharp-trained Pan Zareta second- and third-place finishers Power of Snunner (Brian Hernandez, Jr., post three) and Calypso Run (Gabriel Saez, post four) must garner respect, it is the two inside horses making their first starts since November who will likely take more heat at the windows. Lloyd Madison Farm’s Vickie Foley-trained Clairenation (Miguel Mena, post two) enters off four consecutive victories that commenced with a graduation over this course and distance on Mar. 20. The half-sister to multiple stakes-placed turf colt Zapperini has excellent stalking pace. 

 

Adding intrigue to the race is Ben McElroy’s Brendan Walsh-trained Equation (James Graham, rail), a flashy undefeated filly from three starts who runs for the Irish-born conditioner for the first time after commencing her career with Wesley Ward. She was last seen winning a second-level allowance at Churchill Downs on Nov. 20. 

 

The field is completed by Simple Surprise (David Flores, post five), a local allowance winner over this course and distance who comes back on 29 days’ rest for Winchell Thoroughbreds and Steve Asmussen and consistent turf sprinter Boom Bam Bing (Colby Hernandez, post seven), who was fourth last out in the $50,000 Battle of New Orleans over these conditions on Dec. 3.