3-year-old B-teamers try to state their case

If the road to the March 24 Louisiana Derby were a double-elimination tournament, the featured eighth race Monday at Fair Grounds would be a game in the losers’ bracket.

While the top 3-year-old prospects to race at Fair Grounds were set to get their game on Saturday in the Risen Star Stakes, Monday’s first-level allowance race, carded for one mile and 70 yards on dirt, is for sophomores not quite up to Risen Star snuff. Make no mistake, though, there are promising horses among the nine entrants.

In fact, that theme – young horses of promise – is woven throughout the Presidents Day program. Race 3 is a 3-year-old filly first-level turf-sprint allowance, while races 4 and 5 are 3-year-old maidens special weights.

One horse in the Monday feature, Lone Sailor, has moved down to the bottom side of the bracket after floundering last month in the Lecomte Stakes, contesting the early pace before fading to finish ninth. Lone Sailor, who tries allowance competition for the first time since clearing the maiden ranks five starts ago, raced with blinkers for the first time in the Lecomte, but that experiment has quickly come to an end.

While Lone Sailor’s form is questionable, Dark Templar looks like a colt who could be ascendant. Dark Templar won his career debut, a sprint, on Nov. 5 at Churchill Downs, then hit the gate at the start of a two-turn Fair Grounds allowance race Dec. 16, and by the time he got into the race, Principe Guilherme was long gone. Dark Templar rallied for third.

While Principe Guilherme returned with a second-place finish in the Lecomte, Dark Templar came back in another allowance race and gave futile chase to Principe Guilherme’s stablemate Retirement Fund, who starts Monday in the Southwest Stakes. In that Jan. 20 start, Dark Templar, a son of Tapit trained by Brendan Walsh for Stonestreet Stables, again had trouble at the start and then again a furlong into the running, but he finished up encouragingly for second in an improved performance.

“Hopefully, he’ll get the job done now,” Walsh said. “I think he’s gradually on the improve. He was still a little green in the straight last time, but I think things are coming together with him. He’s a typical Tapit in that they can be a bit tricky mentally.”

Trainer Al Stall entered two in the race: Bobby’s Wicked One figures to go forward from his rail draw and try to stay the trip, while Alternative Route should stalk the leaders. Bobby’s Wicked One was a debut sprint winner here earlier in the meet, then went to Delta Downs and had minor trouble while finishing third in the $60,000 Big Drama, a two-turn sprint. Alternative Route debuted in a two-turn maiden race in December, finishing fifth, but improved to win an off-the-turf maiden route on the Lecomte card last month.

“They’re complete opposites,” Stall said. “Alternative Route, he’s a big, long-strided horse, and you’ve got to pedal the bike to keep him going.”

Albarado moving tack to Florida

Jockey Robby Albarado is leaving the Fair Grounds meet and will ride at Gulfstream Park starting next week, he said Friday.

Albarado rides Sunday at Fair Grounds and has mounts Monday at Oaklawn Park, after which he will shift his tack to Florida. Albarado said he plans to return to Kentucky for the Keeneland meet in April.

Albarado, 44, is a Louisiana native and has won multiple Fair Grounds riding titles, but he has struggled to get traction here this winter. Albarado rode 61 winners from 374 mounts at the last Fair Grounds meet but was just 11 for 174 after Friday’s races.