NEW ORLEANS – Seeking his first Kentucky Derby, the trainer Chad Brown on Saturday at Fair Grounds came up with a second serious Derby hope. Five weeks after Brown sent Paladin here from his Payson Park base in Florida to win the Risen Star Stakes, he shipped Emerging Market from Payson to win the Louisiana Derby on Saturday. It was a battle, Emerging Market and Flavien Prat working overtime to push past the very game longshot pacesetter Pavlovian, and had Pavlovian held on, he might have been disqualified for coming out to bump and herd Emerging Market through the final half-furlong. But Emerging Market, making just his second start, shouldered right back at Pavlovian, refusing to give an inch on the way to a nose victory. “It’s impressive. Even his first time he was very professional. Sometimes, second time, you never know, but very impressive for a horse with so little experience,” Prat said. Emerging Market, who campaigns for Brown’s longtime major client Klaravich Stables, didn’t debut until Feb. 7 at Tampa Bay Downs, tracking and eventually running down a hot Todd Pletcher-trained favorite named Powershift. Powershift took a step back in his second start, failing to factor in the Tampa Bay Derby. Emerging Market went the other direction. :: Access the most trusted data and information in horse racing! DRF Past Performances and Picks are available now. None of the six other horses during the 20th and 21st centuries who ran in the Derby after only two starts finished better than fifth, but Emerging Market, if he stays healthy, will become the seventh to try. He earned 100 Road to the Kentucky Derby qualifying points, with Pavlovian also sure to make the 20-runner field, adding 50 points for his runner-up finish to the 20 he got winning by a nose at Sunland. In fact, if things break right, the Louisiana Derby could yield as many as five Kentucky Derby runners. Golden Tempo got 25 points finishing third, bringing his total to 60, which will make the field, and Chip Honcho, a fading fifth Saturday, has 49 points mainly on the strength of his Risen Star Stakes runner-up finish here last month. Universe, who rallied tepidly for fourth Saturday, got 15 points for a total of 39, which could put him on the cusp of qualification this year. Emerging Market, by Candy Ride out of Wild Empress, by Empire Maker, was bred in Kentucky by Stoneriggs Farm, and actually posted timed workouts as early as last May at Saratoga. He did not make the races at age 2, but when he did, Brown had him ready. Emerging Market is far from the most rugged, powerful-looking colt, but after shipping to a new venue and finding himself in a crowded paddock Saturday, the chestnut colt didn’t turn a hair. And in the race, he did everything right. Brown voiced concern about Emerging Market’s post position, the widest in a nine-runner field, but he nailed the break, and Prat was able to drop in and secure a great spot without having to use his mount hard. Meanwhile, Pavlovian broke sharply from the rail, his jockey, Edwin Maldanado, clearly with a plan to take the lead. Autobahn, a 44-1 chance, showed surprising speed from post 2, pushing Pavlovian through an opening quarter mile in a fast 22.65 as Chip Honcho, who could not muster enough pace to make the lead, stacked up three deep. Pavlovian went a half mile in 46.23 and sped nimbly into the far turn, Autobahn beginning to retreat midway around the bend. Prat, who had a ton of horse beneath him, began playing his hand at the three-eighths pole, coming outside Pavlovian and a toiling Chip Honcho at the five-sixteenths and nearly reaching the lead at the quarter pole, the head of the homestretch. “I got him outside and it looked like I was going to win easy,” Prat said. “The other horse really fought back.” Pavlovian, a 21-1 shot, won once in his first eight starts, seven against California-breds, but improved enough in a statebred-restricted mid-January stakes that trainer Doug O’Neil sent him to Sunland, where he won at 5-1 in a very game performance. “At one point we were just dreaming of having a California Derby horse,” O’Neill said. “He’s always been a talented horse, but he just kind of wanted to be a pack horse. He didn’t want to break from the gate all that alertly, was just kind of loose and not focused.” O’Neill said it was Maldanado, who rode Pavlovian for the first time at Sunland, who helped the colt turn a corner, and Pavlovian ran well in defeat. Golden Tempo also turned in a quietly encouraging race finishing third, a length behind Pavlovian. Racing for the first time in blinkers, Golden Tempo a half-furlong into the race wound up exactly where trainer Cherie DeVaux didn’t want him – last by some distance. This time, it was not Golden Tempo’s fault, the colt pinched, bumped, and squeezed just after the start. Golden Tempo had a lot of work to do going into the far turn still at the back of the field, but he progressed steadily around the bend and through the homestretch, gaining on the two still in front of him to the eighth pole. Golden Tempo looked like he would go outside Pavlovian and Emerging Market, but with those two drifting, he and Jose Ortiz swung back down to the fence – as they’d done winning the Lecomte – continuing to close to the wire while running the race’s fastest final quarter-mile. Emerging Market, narrowly favored over Chip Honcho at 2-1, paid $6 to win. His time for 1 3/16 miles over a very fast-playing track was 1:55.18, slower only than Epicenter and Hot Rod Charlie – both legit Derby horses – since the race was moved from 1 1/8 miles in 2020. Emerging Market was given a 90 Beyer Speed Figure. Paladin is going to the Blue Grass two Saturdays from now at Keeneland, unbeaten and already with enough points to make the Derby. Brown, on the penultimate Saturday in March, has two plausibly live chances for the first Saturday in May. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.