The 16th running of the Louisiana Champions Day at the Fair Grounds was held today. I visited the old track off Gentilly Boulevard on a cool sunny day in the Crescent City.

Everything in the facility looked pretty much the same as when I visited three years ago. They had turned the gift shop over to a smoky video poker parlor which was quite disappointing. Walking to the track from the French Quarter shows extensive remodeling and fixing of historic houses along Esplanade Avenue. Closer to the track you see the markings from the searching for bodies and survivors from the days after Katrina. The gumbo is still great at Liuzza's By the Track - as is the BBQ Shrimp Po-Boy. A long fence still keeps locals from walking directly into the facility from the southwest and must be intended to give patrons assurance that their cars are being protected.

Fair Grounds has a nice Hall of Fame display along with exhibits on the track's great history. One display showed an article from Jewell's Crescent City Illustrated - not sure when this was published - probably around 1870's-80's.

"The view from the ample and lofty cupola takes in the whole city and its suburbs, a lovely mingling of rivers, bayous, lakes, swamps, forests, gardens, streets, shipping, spires, and railroad tracks."

Looking at the current view from the 4th floor clubhouse shows bridges, nondescript office towers and hotels, and a newly re-roofed Superdome. Racing rolls on here - just like the mighty river that spawned the town. It's not a scene like "Life on the Metairie" when New Orleans was the center of racing in America but at least racing is back in town which is more than can be said for a town like Omaha where Ak-sar-ben has vanished or a historic racing venue like shuttered Hialeah in Miami .

Sheikh Mo of Dubai looking to buy Liverpool F.C.

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