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Fair and Square will try turf again in Friday's $100,000 Best of Ohio Sydney Gendelman Stakes at Belterra Park.
Fair and Square will officially pick up his trophy as the 2023 Ohio-bred horse of the year when statebred champions are honored during the racing program on Friday at Belterra Park. He has the opportunity to add some more hardware to his trophy case, as he runs in the $100,000 Best of Ohio Sydney Gendelman Stakes on the card.
The Best of Ohio has evolved into a series of showcases throughout the year at all three of the state’s Thoroughbred tracks, seeking to promote the Ohio racing and breeding programs. The series kicks off with five $100,000 stakes at Belterra on Friday, followed by a summer program at Thistledown, and the annual fall showcase program at Mahoning Valley. Fair and Square is one of six previous Best of Ohio race winners – several of them statebred champions – entered for this Friday’s kickoff program.
Fair and Square races as a homebred for the prominent partnership of leading Ohio trainer Tim Hamm’s Blazing Meadows Farm and Kentucky-based WinStar Farm. The gelding won four of seven starts last year at age 3 in his championship campaign. That was topped by a 7 1/4-length romp over stablemate Tantrum in the Best of Ohio Endurance – his fourth career stakes win overall – to lock up championship honors.
Fair and Square opened this season when caught late by Tantrum to run second by three-quarters of a length in an allowance race. The gelding now moves from two turns on dirt back to a middle distance on the turf; in his only prior start on the lawn, he was second in the 2023 Best of Ohio Green Carpet Stakes at Belterra.
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Fair and Square heads a three-pronged entry for Hamm and WinStar, joined by Tantrum – winner of the 2021 Best of Ohio Juvenile – and Silence.
The field has drawn the 2022 and 2023 winners of the Best of Ohio Sydney Gendelman, in Uptown and Brilliant Journey, respectively.
This year’s edition of the $100,000 Best of Ohio Green Carpet Stakes for 3-year-olds on the turf appears likely to be a more wide-open affair as morning-line favorite Who Dey was cross-entered in Sunday’s Grade 3 Matt Winn Stakes on the Churchill Downs dirt. On Wednesday, trainer Tom Drury Jr. said he was “leaning towards” running at Churchill. If Who Dey does re-route back to his home state, his class makes him a serious threat, even though he would be making his turf debut in the Green Carpet. He was unbeaten last year, including a victory in the Best of Ohio Juvenile, to earn statebred champion honors. This year, he has competed well in a pair of open-company stakes, including a strong fourth-place finish – beaten just a nose and a head for second – behind subsequent Preakness Stakes winner Seize the Grey in the Grade 3 Pat Day Mile at Churchill.
If Who Dey, as expected, does not start, the race would appear to go through another three-pronged entrant for Hamm and WinStar in stakes winners Shadowy – the champion Ohio-accredited male of 2023 – and Spellcast, along with Fact Not Fiction.
Officially Yours, coming off an allowance victory at Thistledown against older foes, is the morning-line favorite for the $100,000 Best of Ohio Norm Barron Queen City Oaks for sophom*ore fillies. However, Here’s the Spider is the only entrant to previously win at this race’s 1 1/16-mile distance, doing so in taking last fall’s Best of Ohio John W. Galbreath Memorial.
The $100,000 Best of Ohio Babst/Palacios Memorial for older sprinters and its sister race, the $100,000 Best of Ohio Diana Stakes for fillies and mares, are the only stakes on the program not to draw previous Best of Ohio winners. Moester comes in to the Babst/Palacios Memorial looking to continue a roll that would establish him among the state’s top sprinters, having recently scored a repeat victory in the Michael F. Rowland Memorial.
Empire’s Fire, who has won both his outings this year, was second in the 2023 Babst/Palacios Memorial, while Startdfromdabottom’s stakes placings include a third in the Best of Ohio Sprint.
Buckeye Princess is the morning-line favorite for the Diana, with four wins from five starts. Her only loss came when third in the First Lady Stakes in November at Mahoning Valley in her stakes debut.
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