Delta Downs: Raiseanothergator goes for fourth straight in Fremont

Raiseanothergator will be tough to contain in Saturday night’s $65,000 Fremont at Delta Downs if he runs back to his last start. He romped by 15 1/2 lengths in the $50,000 Louisiana Champions Day Starter Handicap at Fair Grounds, and earned a career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 101. The performance will make him a strong favorite in the Fremont, a one-mile race restricted to 3-year-olds and up who have started for a claiming price at either Delta or Evangeline Downs in 2012-2013. Both tracks are owned by Boyd Gaming.

Raiseanothergator was a $17,500 claim at Evangeline on Aug. 29. He won that night, but did not run back for his new connections, Hardy Racing Stable and trainer Keith Bourgeois, until a $30,000 optional claimer at Delta on Nov. 29. He won, and will be chasing his fourth straight victory when he starts in the Fremont.

“When we claimed him, we didn’t get to run the horse for three months,” Bourgeois said, noting that Evangeline closed soon after the claim and there was a near five-week gap to the start of Delta. Bourgeois also said a suitable race for Raiseanothergator was not available early in the meet at Delta. In the optional claimer, run around two turns, the horse won by a head over The Best Glacier, who gets a rematch Saturday.

“The Best Glacier came right up to him, and he fought him off,” Bourgeois said of Raiseanothergator. “I thought we were beat. That was a really big effort for him to come off that long a layoff and beat that kind of horse.”

The Best Glacier had been running in some high-end claiming races at Churchill Downs prior to the start at Delta. And, Bourgeois noted, The Best Glacier came right back to win after facing Raiseanothergator, romping by 7 1/4 lengths in a $30,000 optional claimer at Delta the night before Raiseanothergator’s front-running win on Louisiana Champions Day.

Raiseanothergator will break from post 5 under jockey Emanuel Nieves.

“He’s pretty speedy,” Bourgeois said. “I noticed he sprinted back in the early days, even ran 5 1/2 [furlongs] on the turf. You don’t really send him to the lead. He just takes himself to the lead. He’s natural early speed.”

Runaway Stephen won a conditioned allowance at Delta Nov. 6 in his first start back from being gelded. The castration came following a fifth-place finish in the Grade 2 Super Derby in September, and has served Runaway Stephen well, said his trainer, Joey Foster.

“It’s picked his head up,” he said. “He’s a little more business, a little more willing. He was kind of a lazy colt. Everything you did, you had to make him do. Now, he’s wanting to do it. It changed his attitude.”

Chris Rosier has the mount on the late-running Runaway Stephen.