Thursday feature offers more modest road to Louisiana Derby

Usually, the undercard comes before the main event, but in this case, the order is reversed. Last Saturday saw the best 3-year-olds stabled at Fair Grounds start in the Grade 2, $400,000 Risen Star Stakes. The featured eighth race Thursday is in the same division, but this first-level dirt-route allowance race for 3-year-olds is for horses not quite up to Risen Star snuff.

An especially strong performance from whoever wins the race, however, could land the horse in the $1 million Louisiana Derby next month. And the two most likely horses to deliver such a showing are Jensen and Harlan Punch.

The pair squared off in a race at this class level and distance, one mile and 70 yards, won on Jan. 31 by Dolphus, with Jensen second and Harlan Punch fourth, but the tables could easily turn Thursday.

Harlan Punch was the 3-5 favorite that day, and on bare form, one could see why bettors would favor him, though the odds were extremely short. Harlan Punch won his career debut last August at Ellis Park, then was second to the talented Forevamo in the Jean Lafitte Stakes at Delta Downs and third in the $1 million Delta Jackpot. The concern heading into the Jan. 31 race was that the Jackpot was run Nov. 21, and Harlan Punch had not raced since then while logging only a handful of timed workouts. He looked like a horse who might be short, and ran like one, finishing a one-paced fourth.

But that race should have shaken off the rust, and Harlan Punch has worked twice since then for trainer Tom Amoss and owner-breeder Rosemont Farm, the connections that scored a 74-1 shocker Saturday with Venus Valentine in the Rachel Alexandra Stakes. Better still, his odds are almost certainly going up Thursday.

Jensen, a Haynesfield colt bred and owned by Larry and Cindy Jones and trained by Larry Jones, has shown at least mild promise in his three starts, all at this meet. He was second in his sprint debut, then won a two-turn maiden race, and in the Jan. 31 start was beaten only three-quarters of a length by Dolphus after appearing to lose his focus at the top of the stretch, ceding precious ground before finding his stride again late.

There are five others in the race, but it seems likely that one of the two favorites will prevail.

Dolphus getting a break

The winner of that allowance race, Dolphus, was scratched from the Risen Star and is unlikely to surface anytime soon.

“I think we’re going to let him grow up a little and point for a late-summer campaign,” trainer Joe Sharp said.

Dolphus has shown potential in three starts and has gotten more than his fair share of attention as a half-brother to champion Rachel Alexandra.

Hernandez fined by stewards

Fair Grounds stewards fined jockey Colby Hernandez $1,000 for misjudging the finish line and almost certainly costing his mount, Slick Pardoned Me, a victory in the seventh race last Friday. Hernandez apparently thought the race was at one mile and ended at the sixteenth pole when it was a one-mile-70-yard dirt race using the regular finish. He stood up and stopped riding Slick Pardoned Me after the horse had made the lead at the sixteenth pole but began riding again upon realizing his mistake and saved second.