With 14 entered, Lecomte offers lots of angles

NEW ORLEANS – There’s a one-eyed horse and a horse with two names, three entries from the Steve Asmussen barn and two from trainer Mark Casse, stretch-out sprinters with speed and deep closers with grind.

Put 14 3-year-olds in a starting gate and there will be plenty of moving parts, and that’s the setup Saturday at Fair Grounds where the Grade 3, $200,000 Lecomte caps a 13-race, six-stakes program while staking a starting marker along the Louisiana road to the Triple Crown.

The Lecomte, post time set for 5:55 Central, offers 17 Kentucky Derby qualifying points distributed 10-4-2-1. The race used to be a short-stretch mile, has recently been run over one mile 70 yards, and this year has been stretched to 1 1/16 miles as Fair Grounds lengthened all three of its stakes in this division. The $1 million Louisiana Derby on March 21 will be contested over 1 3/16 miles.

A mile and a sixteenth doesn’t leave much straightaway before the first turn comes up after the start, and trainer Mark Casse is seriously considering scratching Lynn’s Map since the colt drew post 14.

Casse won the Lecomte a year ago with War of Will, who went on to capture the Preakness Stakes. Oxbow, the 2013 Lecomte winner, also won the Preakness.

The Lecomte puts a period, if not an exclamation point, on a card that starts at noon Central, and is the cashing leg of an all-stakes pick four with a $100,000-guaranteed pool. The Silverbulletday for 3-year-old fillies immediately precedes the Lecomte, and weather could unfortunately play a key role in the proceedings. There was about a 50 percent chance of rain in New Orleans from Friday night all the way through Saturday night.

Finnick the Fierce is the horse lacking an eye, and he’s no mere curiosity, having rallied for a close second in the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes at Churchill Downs at odds of nearly 90-1 in his 2-year-old finale. Trainer Rey Hernandez, a former jockey, has been working Finnick the Fierce himself at the Thoroughbred Training Center in Kentucky and said the fast breeze times Finnick has posted cohere with the feeling his horse has given him. Finnick the Fierce’s lack of a right eye makes his rail draw especially difficult, and at some point, he’ll need to find an outside path.

The 7-2 morning-line favorite Scabbard was called Noose before his name was changed last summer. His dull Breeders’ Cup Juvenile aside, you could just call him a runner. Scabbard didn’t have an ideal trip when he ran into the sharp, advanced Green Light Go and finished second in the Saratoga Special, and had a much worse journey when checked sternly before the quarter pole in the Iroquois Stakes at Churchill, re-rallying to close serious ground on the talented Dennis’ Moment. Scabbard never picked up his feet when fourth in the BC Juvenile, but that performance probably is a throw-out.

“He struggled on that track surface and ran even,” said trainer Eddie Kenneally. “Fair Grounds should suit him nicely. He’s a closing type horse and will run all day.”

That description fits two of Asmussen’s three entrants, Excession and Halo Again. Halo Again won the Coronation Futurity, for Ontario-breds over 1 1/8 miles, in his second start, and might prove more a Queen’s Plate horse than a Triple Crown horse. Excession isn’t without a chance and would benefit from a strong pace, but Silver State clearly seems to possess the most talent of the Asmussen trio. The barn holds him in high regard after a dead-heat debut win and a solid allowance-race second, and Silver State is an impressive physical specimen with a route-leaning pedigree. Yet he must show he has the mindset to put away other horses in deep stretch and the capability of staying a two-turn middle distance.

Lynn’s Map has won two in a row, the last his two-turn debut in a Fair Grounds allowance race. In that spot he ran down another Lecomte entrant, Mr. Monomoy, but might not be talented enough to overcome this wide draw if he runs. Casse’s other starter is Enforceable, who didn’t have a great trip when fourth in the KJC and rates a better chance than his 15-1 morning-line price. Enforceable enjoys his training, has an appealing way of going, and has some upside on the day.

Trainer Brad Cox thinks Mr. Monomoy could improve in his second two-turn start, but Cox, even before the Dec. 21 allowance defeat, wondered aloud if Mr. Monomoy would prove more a miler than a Triple Crown type.

Sycamore Run went to the front and sharply won a sloppy-track sprint in his career debut, and trainer Joe Sharp thinks highly enough of the colt’s mental capacity to try him at two turns in just his second start.