Risen Star should separate Kentucky Derby contenders from pretenders

NEW ORLEANS – This is Mardi Gras season in New Orleans. Beads hang from trees along the Uptown parade routes. Booze-soused crowds shuffle through the French Quarter. Locals have their costumes ready for Fat Tuesday. And when the dust settles after the Risen Star Stakes on Saturday at Fair Grounds, a lot more will be known about which horses were merely dressed up as Kentucky Derby hopefuls and which had substance underneath.

“It’s a deep and talented field,” said trainer Steve Asmussen, who won the 2016 Risen Star with Gun Runner. “It’s going to take a serious horse to win. There will be no doubt where you stand after this race.”

A full field of 14 is entered in the Grade 2, $400,000 Risen Star. Race 11 of 12 on a card that begins at 12:30 p.m. Central and includes five other stakes, the Risen Star is the first 85-point race on the Churchill Downs-created Road to the Kentucky Derby. Qualifying points that determine the Derby’s 20 starters will be doled out 50-20-10-5 to the Risen Star’s top four finishers. Post time for the race is set for 5 p.m. The weather forecast looks ideal.

Asmussen has two entered in the 1 1/16-mile Risen Star, Untrapped and Local Hero; both have a decent chance. Local Hero is only a one-time winner from three starts, but his maiden victory here Jan. 26 in his first start at age 3 and first try around two turns was an eye-opener. Local Hero dueled for the lead on the first turn, made it, set a strong pace, and never really slowed down while winning in a romp, eased up late by jockey Florent Geroux, who rides again Saturday.

“He’s very fast, training really nice,” Asmussen said. “This isn’t a maiden race, but we have a lot of confidence in him. He’s mature mentally, and I feel good about that. I don’t think he’s going to be overwhelmed in that capacity.”

Local Hero is well drawn in post 3 and figures to set out for the lead. There are other front-running types to his outside, but Local Hero might be faster.

Untrapped also made his route debut in his first start at 3 when he finished second in the Lecomte Stakes here Jan. 21. While Guest Suite swept past to victory, Untrapped, who had originally been intended for the Smarty Jones Stakes at Oaklawn Park before a quarantine trapped him in New Orleans, had to wait to clear the fading front-runners.

“I thought he went under the wire well last time,” said Asmussen. “It wasn’t perfect, but it was encouraging. We were a little in limbo with the quarantine about where and when he was going to run.”

Thrice-started Mo Town shipped Tuesday from Florida and was installed as the morning-line favorite on the strength of his victory last fall in the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes, but to trainer Tony Dutrow, Mo Town is just another early-season 3-year-old with promise.

“To me, the horse has everything to prove,” Dutrow said. “I thought the Remsen was a weak race. Is he a better horse now than he was in November? Yes. But again, I think he has everything to prove.”

Mo Town breaks from post 9 under John Velazquez, who was aboard for the Remsen and a seven-length maiden win going one mile at Belmont.

Guest Suite, making his 3-year-old debut on a muddy, sealed track in the Lecomte, stalked the pace, moved up steadily past the three-furlong pole, and went on to a decisive win. Gelded before he ever got to the racetrack, Guest Suite had a solid four-start campaign at 2, winning around two turns at Keeneland and in a one-turn-mile allowance race at Churchill. He has worked strongly since the Lecomte.

“I would hope he can do more this time,” said trainer Neil Howard. “I would like to think I’ve seen progress since the last one.”

Takeoff pressed the pace and held third in the Lecomte, but trainer Mark Casse seems bearish on his chances Saturday.

“In my heart, I feel Takeoff is going to be a really nice grass horse,” Casse said.

Lecomte fourth-place finisher Arklow, still a maiden, had deep-stretch trouble that might have cost him third, and trainer Brad Cox thinks Arklow has improved.

“If he gets a good trip, we feel like he’ll show up Saturday,” he said.

Girvin, another locally based horse, is talented enough to contend, but things have not gone smoothly since he scored a Dec. 16 debut win over the talented colt Excitations. Girvin got stuck at the Evangeline Training Center while Fair Grounds was quarantined because of an equine herpesvirus outbreak and missed an intended start in the Lecomte. He finished second in a turf mile here Feb. 4, a race trainer Joe Sharp hopes adequately prepped him for the Risen Star.

Trainers Doug O’Neill and Keith Desormeaux, who were one-two in the 2016 Kentucky Derby with Nyquist and Exaggerator, both shipped horses from California. Desormeaux has Sorry Erik, who was claimed for just $20,000 two races ago, while O’Neill runs So Conflated, the winner of the California Derby last out over the Tapeta surface at Golden Gate Fields.

The out-of-towners might try their best, but this year’s Risen Star could have a local hero.