Excitations can punch ticket to Louisiana Derby in Sunday allowance
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Girvin won the Risen Star Stakes on Feb. 25 at Fair Grounds, and trainer Al Stall’s phone started ringing.
No, Stall doesn’t train Girvin; Joe Sharp does. But a colt whom Stall does train, Excitations, debuted in the same race as Girvin on Dec. 16. The pair dueled through the whole homestretch, with Girvin getting his head in front just before the finish. Girvin later won the Risen Star by two lengths.
“I kept telling people, ‘Sure, it might make him look good, but he still has to go out and do it,’ ” Stall said of Excitations.
Excitations will take another step toward showing what he can do in Sunday’s seventh race at Fair Grounds. Excitations is one of six 3-year-olds entered in a first-level allowance carded for one mile and 70 yards on dirt and also open to $50,000 claimers.
Stall has never been wild about winning sprint debuts with talented young horses, and Excitations’s narrow loss allowed him another start in the maiden ranks. Stall ran him back Feb. 2 in another sprint, and Excitations responded with a smooth 2 3/4-length maiden win.
Excitations will be an odds-on favorite Sunday while trying winners and two turns for the first time, and if all goes according to plan, Excitations could have a very nice progression and foundation going into the $1 million Louisiana Derby on April 1 should he look like that sort of horse coming out of Sunday’s race.
Going into it, Excitations, who campaigns for the Fair Grounds Racing Club, looks a lot like that sort of horse. By Into Mischief and out of the Sunday Break mare Summer Song, Excitations is a good-feeling powerhouse of a colt who appears to have thrived over the winter.
Excitations can be a handful to handle around the barn, Stall said, but he is kind and responsive when put through his paces on the racetrack. At something like 2-5 odds, Excitations is not an appealing bet Sunday, but he is a very appealing prospect whose stock, thanks to Girvin, shot up last weekend while Excitations merely stood in his stall.