Fair Grounds: Mineshaft Handicap brings together Golden Ticket, Hero of Order

Two of the great upset winners of the 2012 stakes season, Hero of Order and Golden Ticket, will square off Saturday in the Mineshaft Handicap at Fair Grounds.

Golden Ticket was disregarded last summer in the Travers Stakes, where he dead-heated with Alpha at odds of 33-1. But Golden Ticket’s surprise victory paled in comparison to the epic win Hero of Order took down in the Louisiana Derby, where he held off Mark Valeski – another Mineshaft starter – to score at odds of 109-1.

Golden Ticket began his 4-year-old season with a sharp Gulfstream Park allowance win on Jan. 26. He has yet to run all the way back to his Travers score, but did finish a respectable third in the Pennsylvania Derby last September.

Hero of Order, meanwhile, appeared to confirm the flukiness of his New Orleans shocker during the rest of his 2012 campaign. Aside from a distant second-place finish in the Iowa Derby, he finished 13th, fifth, eighth, fifth, sixth, and 10th in his post-Louisiana Derby starts.

But Hero of Order, out of the blue, ran at least as well as Golden Ticket in a second-level sprint allowance here Feb. 2, losing by only a half-length to the very talented Bind, while shading 1:10 for six furlongs, a snappy time at Fair Grounds. The 99 Beyer Speed Figure he earned was a career top.

“I was surprised,” trainer Gennadi Dorochenko conceded. “I didn’t know he could go that fast. It was a good workout for this race.”

◗ Dorochenko confirmed that Bethel, who was cross-entered in the Risen Star and an allowance race on Saturday, would start in the Risen Star. The horse, who has been claimed for $25,000 and $30,000 this meet, was only entered in the allowance race in case he failed to make an oversubscribed Risen Star, Dorochenko said.