NEW ORLEANS (Monday, December 14, 2009) – Castleton Lyons’ Kaddish dueled with Clinton Glasscock’s Smarten Destiny throughout the 1 1/16-mile distance of Monday’s $45,000 feature at Fair Grounds before narrowly besting that rival by a nose at the wire.

The winner, trained by Shannon Ritter and cleverly ridden by jockey Victor Lebron, returned mutuels of $9.60, $5.40 and $3.40, toured the distance of the race taken off the grass and run over sloppy going in 1:46.10 and increased his career earnings to $42,000 with his second victory in three lifetime starts.

Smarten Destiny, who made or forced the pace while recording splits of 24.13 and 47.60, paid $3.20 and $2.40, could not stay with the winner late but was easily second best.

Vision Racing’s Brickyard got up for the third position at the wire, paying $3.60 to show while 6 1/2-lengths behind Smarten Destiny

Racing resumes Thursday at Fair Grounds with a nine-race program beginning at 1 p.m., and the race week is highlighted Saturday with a 13-race program dubbed Santa Super Saturday that begins at 12 noon. That card features nine stakes races including four Louisiana Champions Day races that were postponed by inclement weather last weekend.