Fair Grounds notes: Pletcher sending in Intense Holiday for Risen Star

Intense Holiday, who finished a solid third in Cairo Prince’s Holy Bull Stakes romp, will make his next start in the Grade 2, $400,000 Risen Star Stakes on Feb. 22 at Fair Grounds.

Intense Holiday also had been under consideration for the Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park, but Pletcher said via text message Monday that Intense Holiday would instead be shipped from Pletcher’s Palm Meadows base to New Orleans for the 1 1/16-mile Risen Star. Pletcher still has Commissioner as an intended runner in the Fountain of Youth.

Pletcher said he also planned to send Micromanage for the Mineshaft Handicap on the Risen Star card and that he might still come up with a 3-year-old filly for the Rachel Alexandra Stakes.

Pletcher has had more Risen Star success than any other trainer in recent seasons: He won the race with El Padrino in 2012 and with Discreetly Mine in 2010, and sent Palace Malice to a third-place finish last year. The Fair Grounds homestretch is much longer than Gulfstream’s, and that should help Intense Holiday, a Harlan’s Holiday colt who has done his best work late in his races. He rallied for a close fourth behind Honor Code, Cairo Prince, and Wicked Strong in the Remsen Stakes last fall, and closed to finish third – beaten just a half-length by runner-up Conquest Titan – after breaking from post 11 in the Jan. 25 Holy Bull.

[ROAD TO THE KENTUCKY DERBY: Prep races, point standings, replays]

Intense Holiday is one of two known shippers for the Risen Star, which is an 85-point Kentucky Derby qualifying race awarding Derby points on a 50-20-10-5 basis to the top four finishers. Bond Holder, who won the Grade 1 FrontRunner last fall at Santa Anita, is expected to ship from California for trainer Doug O’Neill.

Others expected for the race are the first three finishers from the Jan. 18 Lecomte Stakes: Vicar’s In Trouble, Albano, and Gold Hawk, all three of whom worked either Sunday or Monday at Fair Grounds. Rise Up, the Delta Downs Jackpot winner, is scheduled to make his 3-year-old debut in the Risen Star, and sharp Churchill Downs maiden winner Commanding Curve has been very encouraging in works prepping for his stakes debut in the Risen Star.

The Risen Star figures to attract a larger field than its sister race on the card, the Grade 3, $200,000 Rachel Alexandra, but even with Silverbulletday Stakes winner Unbridled Forever’s connections passing the race to wait for the Fair Grounds Oaks, the Rachel Alexandra should draw an appealing cast. Among the likely runners is Ria Antonia, the filly who was placed first via disqualification in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. On Sunday, with trainer Jeremiah Englehart in town for the first time this winter, Ria Antonia worked for the fourth time since shipping to Fair Grounds from New York, going five furlongs in 1:01.80.

Also working Sunday morning was Cassatt, one of two Larry Jones-trained fillies – the other is Divine Beauty – pointed to the Rachel Alexandra. Jones failed to find a Rachel Alexandra prep race for Cassatt, who most recently won a six-furlong maiden race Jan. 9, and instead put her through a major one-mile workout in 1:39. Cassatt started the work slowly and finished fast, leaving Jones pleased with the progress toward her stakes debut.

Old-timer seeks third straight

Nine-year-old Jimmy Simms appears to have been drinking from the fountain of youth rather than the water bucket in his stall.

A one-time turf stakes horse, Jimmy Simms has been holding steady in high-end claiming races, winning some and losing some, but he delivered an amazingly sharp performance – on dirt, no less – in the ninth race Jan. 12.

There, running for a $40,000 claiming option in a race also open to second-level allowance horses, Jimmy Simms throttled a talented 4-year-old named Ground Transport who had placed in a stakes his previous start and returned to easily win a second-level allowance race. The third-place finisher Jan. 12 also returned to win last weekend, and Jimmy Simms’s victory produced a 97 Beyer Speed Figure.

All of which makes Jimmy Simms look formidable running right back at the same class level in the featured ninth race Thursday. There are 10 horses in the main body of the Thursday feature, carded for 7 1/2 furlongs on turf, with another four horses entered for main track only. On either surface, the old man – if he comes close to repeating his last start – will be difficult to defeat.