Fair Grounds handicapping roundup: Week of March 1

Risen Star Day revisited

One weekend to the next can seem like a long gap in racing, but let’s take a look into the past at last Saturday’s Risen Star card.

Untapable, for good reason, stole headlines with her brilliant blowout victory in the Rachel Alexandra Stakes, her 3-year-old debut. I didn’t make Untapable a top-three pick in the race, but looking at the horses in the paddock and post parade, I could see that I’d made a mistake. Untapable was slightly keyed up, but she was the looker of the field. She was stronger, keener, and just displayed more energy than the other horses.

Moreover, as far as the future goes, she carried a good amount of flesh, and trainer Steve Asmussen should have plenty to work with and hone down heading toward the Kentucky Oaks.

Untapable got a 100 Beyer Speed Figure for her raw time of 1:43.64, and that seems right. It was the second-fastest Rachel Alexandra (the race used to be named the Silverbulletday) since Take Charge Lady went 1 1/16 miles in an amazing 1:42.09 in 2002. Summer Applause clocked 1:43.30 in 2012, but the track that day – as evidenced by El Padrino’s very fast Risen Star – was especially quick, which was not the case Saturday.

We might not have seen the best of Always Lucky (second) and Ria Antonia (fourth), but I’m highly uncertain that either horse has enough upside to run with Untapable at her best. Unbridled Forever might – might – prove to be her equal, based on a maiden win last fall and a sharp victory over Divine Beauty in the Jan. 19 Silverbulletday Stakes. But I watched Unbridled Forever work last Saturday, and while her gallop-out was impressive, she is a much more lightly made filly than Untapable.

As for Intense Holiday’s Risen Star, my feeling is the performance is being underrated. The Risen Star was marginally slower most of the way around the oval than the Rachel Alexandra, with the exception of the final quarter-mile, which was marginally faster. What’s being somewhat missed, I think, is that the Risen Star pace, which turned surprisingly tepid when several presumed front-runners failed to show for various reasons, worked strongly against Intense Holiday, who was eighth of 14 in the early going.

The pacesetting Albano wasn’t slowing down – his fourth quarter was 24.42 seconds, compared with his first quarter in 24.30 – and for Intense Holiday to make up about four lengths in the final quarter-mile, after being used to gain position on the far turn, was solid. I think the colt is more legitimate than generally credited and wouldn’t be surprised to see him win the Louisiana Derby.

The Risen Star pace also worked against Hoppertunity, who was fourth while racing under fairly demanding circumstances, and Commanding Curve, who rallied from 11th to sixth from a wide draw in a race he might have needed.

Class Included continues to surprise me, and her win in the Bayou Handicap was better than the race’s $60,000 purse, but the Mineshaft Handicap on dirt and the Fair Grounds Handicap on turf left me cool. Bradester has potential and was solid in winning the Mineshaft, but when a heavyweight or two shows up in the New Orleans Cap, I’ll be surprised if he can hang. Daddy Nose Best appears to have hit a flat zone after two good races, and it was disappointing to see him flatten late and finish third to listed stakes types Potomac River and Skyring in the Fair Grounds Cap.

No apparent turf bias

It rained quite a bit Thursday, Feb. 20, and races were off the grass the following day, but the course must have been drier than I realized before the rain because I would have called it good-to-firm from the start of last Saturday’s card. Times were quick, and you could hear hooves pounding over the top of the course.

My guess, based on historical precedent, was that when the inner rails came down and the Saturday races were run on the true inside of the course, outside paths would be preferred on the Risen Star program. And that was wrong. There was no positional bias that I could see. I made the guess because the course drains so much slower on the inside, but since the Thursday night rain was apparently quickly absorbed into the course, drainage might not have played a major role.

It’s possible that we won’t see another rail-at-zero course until Louisiana Derby Day on March 29, so interpretations will have to be put on hold.

Still awash in favorites

I mentioned early this meet the chalk’s truly amazing 41 percent strike rate during the 2012-13 Fair Grounds season, and while we’re not at that level this meet, the favorites are coming in again in New Orleans. Through last Sunday, chalk was winning at a 38 percent clip, which is slightly beyond robust in my book. Gulstream Park chalk is hitting at 35 percent right now, Aqueduct at 34 percent, and Oaklawn at 31 percent. Hawthorne chalk won at the same 38 percent clip as at Fair Grounds when only about seven horses per race started during the Chicago meet’s first three-day week, and I still think it’s somewhat crazy that the betting public gets it right so often in New Orleans.

Hail Howard

Trainer Neil Howard won five races during the 2012-13 Fair Grounds meet – the same number of races he has won so far at Fair Grounds in February alone. Through last Sunday, the Howard barn was a sizzling 9-5-0-1 since Feb. 1, and only three trainers – all with at least three times as many starters – had won more races in February.