Fair Grounds: Geroux Off All Mounts This Weekend Due To Father’s Passing

By Ryan Martin —-

Florent Geroux aboard Gun Runner; Reed Palmer Photo

* Geroux Off All Mounts This Weekend Due To Father’s Passing
• Sharp, Beschizza Going For More Success With Into Summer In Pago Hop
• Lovell Continues To Aim High With Fault

GEROUX OFF ALL MOUNTS THROUGH MONDAY DUE TO FATHER’S PASSING

Jockey Florent Geroux has taken of all of his mounts this weekend, including Monday Jan. 1, in order to be with his family in Amiens, France following the passing of his father, retired jockey and trainer Dominique Geroux who was taken to the hospital following an injury when falling on Christmas morning. He was 67 years old.

According to Geroux’s agent Doug Bredar, he could possibly resume riding on Thursday Jan. 4 at the earliest. Funeral services for Dominique Geroux are pending.

Geroux was named the rider on two mounts for Friday evening’s Starlight Racing card as well as five for Saturday Dec. 30, including Sensitive in the $75,000 Pago Hop and Mr. Misunderstood in the $75,000 Woodchopper Stakes for trainer Brad Cox. He also was scheduled to ride seven on Sunday, Dec. 31 and six on Monday, Jan. 1.

SHARP, BESCHIZZA GOING FOR MORE SUCCESS WITH INTO SUMMER IN PAGO HOP

Trainer Joe Sharp and jockey Adam Beschizza have found a lot of success together at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots having won 11 races together so far during the Winter Meet, but they could take their success to the next level when Into Summer goes into the starting gate for Saturday’s $75,000 Pago Hop Stakes, a one mile event for 3-year-old fillies over the Stall-Wilson Turf Course.

Sharp first met Beschizza when working as Mike Stidham’s assistant at the Fair Grounds while Beschizza was galloping horses for the trainer. Since then, the two have developed a good relationship with one another.

“It’s funny, he came here about six or seven years ago when I first met him as an assistant for Stidham and I sort of took him under my wing,” Sharp said. “He even flew in for my first Breeders’ Cup with Sapphire Kitten (4th in the 2015 Juvenile Fillies Turf at Keeneland) and then he came back two years ago and I rode him in a couple of races here at the Fair Grounds.”

While Beschizza would like to get a stakes victory for Sharp on Saturday, he believes that the sky is the limit. Should he win this Saturday, it also would be his first stakes victory in the United States.

“I’d like to say that a win like this would be the icing on the cake but I hope that there’s more to come,” Beschizza said. “It’s nice to be aboard his horses approaching this type of race. She got a nice draw and has run well in defeat. I think there shouldn’t be very many excuses going into (Saturday).”

Owned by Brad Grady, Into Summer will be facing stakes company for the first time in the Pago
Hop where she will break from post two. Last time out, she was second at Keeneland in an allowance race on Oct. 28, which was taken off the turf.

“It’s a tough spot,” Sharp said. “The Pago Hop has come up pretty light in past years, but this is one of the toughest fields I can remember this race having. Her numbers are good though and she’s run well against competitive fields.”

Such competitive fields include an allowance event at Kentucky Downs in September, where she was second behind two-time winner Proud Reunion and finished ahead of graded stakes-placed Awesome Boss, who was third in that race. She also faced stakes placed Overnegotiate and Majestic Bonnie in an allowance race over the Saratoga turf course on Aug. 3 and was a close but troubled fifth beaten 3¼ lengths.

“In the Saratoga race, she had a tough trip,” Sharp said. “She was on the rail was stuck inside the whole way around.”

LOVELL CONTINUES TO AIM HIGH WITH FAULT

Trainer Michelle Lovell believes that her graded stakes winner Fault could run a big race in Saturday’s $75,000 Pago Hop Stakes over the Stall-Wilson Turf Course.

Owned by Agave Racing Stable, the daughter of Blame won the Gr. III Pucker Up at Arlington Park in August where she beat graded stakes winners Journey Home and Lovely Bernadette at 12-1 odds. Following that effort, Fault shipped to Belmont Park for the Gr. II Sands Point where she finished third beaten 1½ lengths behind Uni (GB) and Grade I winner La Coronel. In her next two starts, she was defeated by familiar foes Lovely Bernadette and Journey Home who ran one-two in Keeneland’s Gr. III Valley View on Oct. 20 and the Gr. II Mrs. Revere at Churchill Downs on Nov. 25. Fault finished a respective fourth and fifth in those two races.

“We beat a few good horses that day at Arlington and they came back and beat us,” Lovell said. “She showed enough talent in some of her allowance races over the summer and ran well at Indiana (second in the Ta Wee Stakes, July 20). She showed she was growing and maturing in
every way. So I thought she was stakes quality but I didn’t know that she would get the win that day at Arlington. I think that she’s only going to get better. The past couple of races, she’s had not poor trips, but not exactly where we wanted to be, but she’s doing excellent. She’ll have to work out a trip, it should be an honest pace up front.”

Fault will break from post seven under Corey Lanerie

Cover Photo: Florent Geroux; Yahoo Sports Photo