By Brett Martel
AP Sports Writer

They hauled off soil tainted by Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters and rebuilt a grandstand roof ripped free by the storm’s winds.

After more than a year of renovations, costing about $16 million, a Thanksgiving tradition–horseracing–returned to New Orleans on Thursday (Nov. 23).

The annual winter meet has started on Thanksgiving Day in all but a few years since 1934. Until last year, when Katrina forced the Fair Grounds to move its season to Louisiana Downs near Shreveport, people like 16-year-old Joe Talamo had spent nearly every Thanksgiving in memory at the venerable New Orleans track, where live oak trees, hundreds of years old, grace the infield