Preview Day stakes look strong

NEW ORLEANS - Four Grade 3 stakes, topped by the $300,000 Risen Star for 3-year-olds, highlight next Saturday's Louisiana Derby Preview Day. The stakes are the final local preps for Louisiana Derby Day on March 10 when the New Orleans Handicap, Mervin Muniz Memorial, and Fair Grounds Oaks serve as supporting features.

Two of the nation's most powerful stables will be well represented on the Preview Day card.

Assistant trainers of Todd Pletcher, whose medication suspension ends next Saturday, have horses coming in from both coasts to compete in three of the stakes. Circular Quay, second in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, is being shipped in from California by Michael McCarthy to run in the 1 1/16-mile Risen Star.

Two horses from Pletcher's Florida string, which is being managed by Anthony Sciametta Jr., will contest other stakes on the card. English Channel, a multiple Grade 1 winner of over $2.6 million, is scheduled to run in the $200,000 Fair Grounds Breeders' Cup Handicap at 1 1/8 miles on the grass. Sciametta is also expected to send Master Command, winner of the Grade 2 Meadowlands Breeders' Cup Handicap last October, for the $200,000 Mineshaft Handicap at 1 1/16 miles on the dirt.

"Both horses will work Sunday," said Sciametta, "and assuming they work okay, they'll ship Thursday."

Trainer Steve Asmussen will saddle top prospects in both 3-year-old events. Zanjero, who finished second to Nobiz Like Shobiz in the Remsen Stakes at the end of his 2-year-old campaign, will make his 3-year-old debut in the Risen Star. Appealing Zophie, winner of the Grade 1 Spinaway at Saratoga last summer, will start her 3-year-old campaign in the $200,000 Silverbulletday for 3-year-old fillies.

The Risen Star is also expected to draw the shippers Notional, winner of the Grade 2 San Rafael Stakes at Santa Anita in his last start for trainer Doug O'Neill; Florida-based Imawildandcrazyguy from trainer Bill Kaplan's barn; and the Wayne Lukas-trained Star Base, who is wintering at Oaklawn Park. Tom Amoss, the leading trainer at Fair Grounds, is likely to run Izzie's Halo, second to Hard Spun in the Grade 3 Lecomte last month.

Others in the Silverbulletday include Get Ready Bertie and Dawn After Dawn, who finished one-two in the Tiffany Lass last month at Fair Grounds; Oaklawn shippers High Heels and Grace Happens; and Total, the impressive winner of the Letellier Memorial last month who will be trying two turns for the first time.