Risen Star field of 12 packed with leading Derby prospects

There have been plenty of blah renewals of the Risen Star Stakes. Not this year.

The 12-horse field in the season’s first 1 1/8-mile, 105-point Derby prep includes five horses from the top 20 in Daily Racing Form’s weekly Derby Watch. Atop that list sits Sierra Leone, who races for the first time since a strong performance in the Dec. 2 Remsen Stakes.

Sierra Leone comes nowhere near standout status. Track Phantom has won Fair Grounds’s first two races in the division, the Dec. 23 Gun Runner and the Jan. 20 Lecomte. His 30 Road to the Derby qualifying points, the process that determines the 20-horse Kentucky Derby field, are second only to Fierceness’s 37. The first five finishers in Saturday’s Risen Star earn 50, 25, 15, 10, and 5 points.

Track Phantom stands sixth in the Derby Watch rankings, two places ahead of his Steve Asmussen-trained stablemate Hall of Fame, who jumps from the maiden ranks into this Grade 2, $400,000 contest. Hall of Fame, who still is learning to settle, gives up nothing to any Risen Star rival in raw talent.

Honor Marie is an underrated 13th in Derby Watch, though he figures to benefit from the Risen Star, his first start since winning the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes on Nov. 25. Making his third start, Honor Marie won by two lengths, going away, and looked like he just was scraping the surface of his talent. Only five 2-year-olds last year earned a Beyer Speed Figure higher than Honor Marie’s 92.

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Catching Freedom, seventh in Derby Watch, regularly gets outworked by his Brad Cox-trained stablemates, but he captured the Smarty Jones by more than two lengths on Jan. 1.

“I think of him as an afternoon horse more than a morning horse,” Cox said.

The Risen Star is more of an evening race than an afternoon one, with post time set for 6:17 p.m. Central as the last of 14 races. First post is noon.

Rain was forecast Friday night into Saturday morning, but the track should be fast for the Risen Star. The feature is the cashing leg of an all-stakes pick five that starts with race 10.

Track Phantom is 3 for 3 since stretching out to two turns last fall. It’s fair to point out he controlled a easy tempo winning the Lecomte, but Track Phantom, a son of Quality Road, overcame a heated, contested pace in the Gun Runner.

Asmussen sees a capable colt with excellent tactical speed who has been gaining strength and confidence week by week. Track Phantom has controlled speed to help mitigate post 11, but since 2000 horses breaking from post 10 and wider are 4 for 47 in 1 1/8-mile Fair Grounds dirt races.

Track Phantom faces stronger competition and unfamiliar foes; the only horse exiting the Lecomte is Tizzy Indy. Track Phantom, however, has worked many times with Hall of Fame, including a major drill Feb. 3. While Track Phantom came back with an easy half-mile Feb. 10, Hall of Fame shows no published works since Feb. 3, though it’s worth noting he didn’t breeze between Jan. 7 and his maiden win Jan. 20.

What a maiden win it was. A troubled second in his seven-furlong debut in November, Hall of Fame was stuck on the rail pressing a fast pace on the Lecomte undercard, and after struggling a bit mentally to come through a narrow opening, he took the lead going around the far turn, buried his pace rival, and after contesting a scorching 46.76-second half-mile proceeded to draw away and win by 10 1/4 lengths. Hall of Fame ran a faster 1 1/16 miles than Track Phantom later that day and galloped out like he was asking for more.

Joel Rosario rode both colts Jan. 20 and retains the mount on Track Phantom. Ricardo Santana Jr. comes from Oaklawn to pilot Hall of Fame.

Hall of Fame was purchased at a yearling auction for $1.4 million by the connections that own the powerful racing and breeding operation Coolmore, and the same group, along with Rocket Ship Racing, campaigns Sierra Leone, who fetched $2.3 million at auction.

Sierra Leone, a son of Gun Runner, is trained by Chad Brown, 1 for 14 at Fair Grounds since his first starter in 2013. Brown said he chose the Risen Star because of the race’s 1 1/8 miles and long homestretch, and Brown is adding small-cup blinkers for this race. In the 1 1/8-mile Remsen, contested over a speed-biased track, Sierra Leone put in a huge run from a distant last and took the lead in the final furlong, then lost focus and was nailed on the wire by the pacesetter he’d just passed, Dornoch.

“I hope they help get him in a little bit better early position,” Brown said of the blinkers. “He definitely comes from off the pace, but he seems a little bit more focused, grabbing the bit better.”

Tyler Gaffalione rides Sierra Leone for the first time.

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Honor Marie’s running style resembles Sierra Leone’s, and trainer Whit Beckman, a former Brown assistant, believes Honor Marie will excel at 1 1/8 miles and beyond.

“I think this horse has more speed than his earlier races indicate. I just want to get him into a comfortable rhythm,” Beckman said.

Real Men Violin won a maiden race over Track Phantom and was second in the Kentucky Jockey Club after a traffic-filled trip. Trainer Todd Pletcher removes blinkers from Cardinale and said that his other runner, Moonlight, is showing signs of growing out of 2-year-old immaturity. Last-start maiden winners Resilience and Bee Dancer have upside and a better chance than Awesome Ruta and Tizzy Indy.

Chances are, the Risen Star will turn out to be a major Derby prep.

– additional reporting by David Grening

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