Pappacap leads nine entered in Lecomte Stakes
Nine 3-year-olds headed by Breeders’ Cup Juvenile runner-up Pappacap were entered Saturday in the Lecomte Stakes, one of six stakes races on a marathon 14-horse card Jan. 22 at Fair Grounds.
The Lecomte is the second race in the local series of dirt-route stakes for colts and geldings who are 2-year-olds when the Fair Grounds meet commences on Thanksgiving and 3-year-olds after the New Year. Epicenter won the $100,000 Gun Runner on Dec. 26, first race in the series, and also was entered in the Lecomte, which will be contested over 1 1/16 miles.
From the rail out, the Lecomte field is Surfer Dude (Reylu Gutierrez riding), Unified Report (Corey Lanerie), Pappacap (Joe Bravo), Trafalgar (Colby Hernandez), Epicenter (Joel Rosario), Cyberknife (Florent Geroux), Blue Kentucky (Jareth Loveberry), Call Me Midnight (James Graham), and Presidential (Brian Hernandez Jr.).
Pappacap, trained by Mark Casse, is part of the sensational first crop sired by Gun Runner. After a winning debut last May in Florida, Pappacap spent the rest of his season racing in California, where he won the Best Pal over six furlongs, finished fourth in the Del Mar Futurity at seven furlongs, and concluded his campaign with a pair of two-turn starts: second-place finishes behind top 2-year-old Corniche in the American Pharoah at Santa Anita, and the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Del Mar. Pappacap returned to post-Breeders’ Cup training at Casse Farm in Florida before shipping to Fair Grounds in mid-December.
Rail-drawn Surfer Dude was a distant third behind Epicenter in the Gun Runner, while Unified Report stretches out from sprints and rises in class from Louisiana-bred competition. Trafalgar won a one-turn-mile Churchill Downs maiden race Oct. 2 and a two-turn, first-level Fair Grounds allowance race on Dec. 2, after which trainer Al Stall aimed toward the Lecomte.
Cyberknife raced greenly winning a Dec. 26 Fair Grounds two-turn dirt maiden for trainer Brad Cox. Blue Kentucky finished a tepid third in the six-furlong Sugar Bowl, Call Me Midnight was seventh last out in the Kentucky Jockey Club on Nov. 27 at Churchill Downs, and Presidential, a Steve Asmussen-trained stablemate of Epicenter, won a one-mile maiden race Aug. 27 at Indiana Grand in his most recent start.
The Lecomte leads to the 1 1/8-mile Risen Star in February and the 1 3/16-mile Louisiana Derby in March. It’s part of the Road to the Kentucky Derby series that offers qualifying points (distributed 10-4-2-1 to the top four Lecomte finishers) that determine the 20-horse Derby field in May.
The Lecomte will be the last of 14 races with first post set at noon Central. Immediately preceding it is the Grade 3, $150,000 Louisiana Stakes, which drew Mandaloun, winner of the 2020 Risen Star at Fair Grounds, and Midnight Bourbon, who won the 2021 Lecomte. Both 4-year-olds are prepping for a trip to Saudi Arabia for a start in the $20 million Saudi Cup on Feb. 26.
Those two are part of a seven-horse field, while a dozen older horses were entered in the $100,000 Colonel E. R. Bradley over 1 1/16 miles on turf. Two Emmys, who won the Grade 1 Mister D. Stakes in August, is set to start for the first time since a second-place finish in October at Keeneland.
The $150,000 Silverbulletday, for 3-year-old fillies at one mile, 70 yards on dirt, leads to the Rachel Alexandra in February and the Fair Grounds Oaks in March, and drew six entrants. North County, who won a Dec. 26 race in the same division, the Untapable, is not among them, but that race’s second-place finisher, Fannie and Freddie, drew the rail. Also entered are Bernabreezy, Miss Chamita, Sweet As Pie, La Crete, and Candy Raid.
The other stakes on the card are the $100,000 Marie Krantz, a turf route for older fillies and mares, and the Duncan Kenner, a turf sprint that drew Just Might, a seven-time stakes winner in 2021.