Valenzuela on live one for Battle of New Orleans

Unbridled Courage could give jockey Patrick Valenzuela his first stakes win since 2012 in the $50,000 Battle of New Orleans Stakes on Saturday at Fair Grounds, but “could” is an important qualifier here.

Unbridled Courage’s last start produced a fine second-place finish to the good filly Kiss Moon in the $289,000 Ladies Turf at Kentucky Downs in August. But that was a one-mile grass race over the undulating, European-style grass course there, and Unbridled’s Courage has zero experience in short turf sprints like the 5 1/2-furlong Battle of New Orleans.

Questions difficult to answer attach themselves to nearly all of the eight fillies or mares in this race, a tricky handicapping puzzle with no obviously satisfying answer.

As for Valenzuela, he won 27 stakes races during 2005 but has seen that total decline every season since. Valenzuela, 53, rode only 16 races in 2014 and had been off the better part of two years when he landed a mount last weekend in the $1 million Delta Jackpot. Valenzuela was scheduled to have his first ride of the Fair Grounds meet Thursday. He has seen some mild support already from local outfits and might have his livest mount yet on Unbridled Courage, one of two Battle of New Orleans entrants for trainer Joe Sharp.

Racing over the Tapeta all-weather surface at Presque Isle earlier this year, Unbridled Courage showed tactical speed and energetic stretch runs, and if she can transfer that form to the Fair Grounds grass course, she can land a favorable trip behind what ought to be a fast, contested pace.

Adrianne G, D’boldest, Snappy Girl, and even Sharp’s second entrant, Bluegrass Mattie, should be on the lead or pressing. Adrianne G figures the shortest price of that group but drew inside all the other speed, and a pressured front-end trip coming at the end of a long campaign should rouse skepticism from handicappers.

Assuming the pace players negate one another, and looking for a better price than Unbridled’s Courage, Colour Party rates a chance. The Irish-bred filly has made seven starts since being imported from England, but none in a one-turn turf race. Going seven furlongs on grass early in 2014, she finished second of 15 in a maiden race at Newmarket in England. Every one of the eight horses her trainer, Mike Stidham, sent out during this meet’s opening three-day racing week delivered a representative performance.