The trainers to watch at Fair Grounds are not only the high-profile conditioners that are solid year in and year out but also the teachers from some of the smaller barns. Those outfits can produce huge payoffs to bettors and must be monitored.
Sure, last year’s leading trainer Steve Asmussen will win his fair share of races and he will be extremely prominent in the stakes. He led the Fair Grounds meeting last year in purses won but some less fashionable barns will be the way to go for value at times.
The top trainers to watch at Fair Grounds last year also included Joe Sharp, Tom Amoss and Brad Cox, but the masses know about those prolific barns.
The only trainer that won at least 20 races at the meeting last year and still hit at 24% was Edward J. Johnston.
Johnston is adept with good horses and cheap ones. He was one of the trainers to watch in the Happy Ticket Stakes last month at Fair Grounds but the bettors dropped the ball. His student Sunny Oak had proven earlier in the year that she could handle the Fair Grounds surface but fans let her go at 3-1 and she won the Happy Ticket with an 83 Beyer Speed Figure.
Johnston also showed he is a salt of the earth type and one of the trainers to watch in soft races too. He saddled the homebred Bayou Some on December 9 for the colt’s first start. The Louisiana-bred pressed the issue from the get go, took over at the top of the lane and won his debut by a widening 6 lengths in a state-bred maiden $12,500 claimer.
When handicapping Johnston’s runners at Fair Grounds know that he can keep a horse thriving once the horse wins. In the last 5 years he has won with 22% of his last-out winners. He is great at getting horses to relax when he takes the blinkers off. He has won with 24% of blinkers off runners in the last 5 years. When he ships a horse in from a different circuit, pay attention. He has hit with 62 of 258 starters the last 5 years with a median payoff of 2-1. Finally, he can get horses to win off a layoff. He has won with 27% of his first off a layoff horses returning in 45 days or more the last 5 years.
A new face and one of the sneaky trainers to watch at Fair Grounds this meeting is Tom Morley. The New York-based trainer has had a good year, winning the Grade 1 Ballerina Stakes with Haveyougoneaway and he has a talented string on the grounds. Morley has a lot of runners with grass potential and that fits the way the Fair Grounds system is formulated.
Morley is no overnight success. He learned from some horsemen like Eddie Kenneally and also worked for Jeremy Nosada.
Bettors can look to several Morley runners right now. They included the possible stakes filly Kiss the Toad, a youngster named Manning and an experienced runner named Nisharora.
Kiss the Toad cost $150,000 and seems best as a turf sprinter. She is still seeking her first win. Her sibling Hamazing Destiny was a Grade 3 winner in the Maryland Sprint Stakes and that runner earned over $850,000.
Nisharora is a new acquisition for Morley. She has run well at a number of different venues and may have won the Dahlia Stakes at Laurel Park last spring if she didn’t run into a roadblock.
Morley has a few ploys in his training that really work. When he drops a horse from a Maiden Special Weight race into a maiden claimer he is dangerous. He has only won with 5 of 36 of those runners but 5 ran second and 50% of them ran in the money. Morley has been known to give a horse a race on dirt and wheel him back on the turf. In the last 5 years his dirt to turf runners have won 20% of the time with a median payoff of 7-2.
He is patient with young horses. He has only won with 5 of his 86 debuters in the last 5 years but the median payoff has been over $16 and 19 others ran in the money.
The aforementioned Manning will make his racing debut for Morley next Saturday, December 17 on grass. The runner cost $320,000, he has trained like the proverbial Swiss clock for this race and he gets Lasix to kick it off. Since he is routing in his initial start, he may need a race but warrants following.
Nisharora will also run December 17. The mare has the benefit of being at Fair Grounds for well over a month and seems to have acclimated. She rates an upset look.
Remember these trainers to watch and make some money this winter.
