New Orleans. LA (SportsNetwork.com) – Odds-on favorite Grand Contender benefited from a surface switch to capture Friday’s $50,000 Buddy Diliberto Memorial Stakes at Fair Grounds.<\/p>\n
Trained by Tom Amoss and ridden by Francisco Torres, Grand Contender went off as the 1-2 favorite in the 1 1\/16-mile stakes on Fair Grounds’ sloppy main track after being taken off the turf. Golden Soul, last year’s Kentucky Derby runner-up, was the 2-1 second pick in the four-horse field after five scratches.<\/p>\n
Owned by Maggi Moss, Grand Contender had control of the pace from the start as Torres never had to use the whip. The 6-year-old gelding cruised to a 1 1\/2- length win over Treasury Bill who was nine lengths better than All Stormy. Golden Soul finished 13 1\/2 lengths behind the winner.<\/p>\n
The time for the Diliberto Memorial on a sealed-sloppy track was 1:44.84<\/p>\n
Friday’s win was Grand Contender’s first since taking the Lone Star Park Handicap on May 26. That win was the final of three straight for the 6-year- old gelding including Delta Downs’ Borgata Stakes and Lone Star’s Texas Mile.<\/p>\n
Grand Contender began 2014 with a pair of seconds at Fair Grounds in the Louisiana and Mineshaft Handicaps. Most recently he was third in both the Evangeline Mile and Delta Mile with a fourth in the Prairie Meadows Handicap sandwiched between.<\/p>\n
The gelding has nine wins, three seconds and six thirds in 26 lifetime starts for $615,610.<\/p>\n
Grand Contender returned $3.00 and $2.10. Treasury Bill paid $4.20 for place, there was no show wagering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Orleans. LA (SportsNetwork.com) – Odds-on favorite Grand Contender benefited from a surface switch to capture Friday’s $50,000 Buddy Diliberto Memorial Stakes at Fair Grounds. Trained by Tom Amoss and ridden by Francisco Torres, Grand Contender went off as the 1-2 favorite in the 1 1\/16-mile stakes on Fair Grounds’ sloppy main track after being […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[330],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27468\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}