International Star Wins Another Derby Qualifier

 

On the third weekend of the new year, the road to the 2015 Kentucky Derby went through New Orleans and Fair Grounds Race Course for the $200,000 Lecomte Stakes (G3). International Star made the last move down the stretch to get the victory, and join El Kabeir and Calculator as ten point winners on this year’s Derby trail.

It was a very interesting running of the Lecomte that included three horses swapping the lead in the early going and then two horses making closing moves down the middle of the stretch at the end of the race.

The race began with Tiznow R J breaking very quickly out of the gate to seize the early lead, but 99-1 shot Hero of Humor responded by going right by the early leader after a quarter mile in :23.66. Runhappy, who had broken his maiden at Turfway Park with an erratic and much publicized running style, had clearly not learned much from his first start. Runhappy’s new rider Shaun Bridgmohan was very quickly dragged from the back of the field to the lead by the end of the first half mile. Things would be very different for Runhappy today as he would lose the lead back to Hero of Humor in the next quarter of a mile and fade to be well beaten in the grade three event.

The fractions did not seem that fast as three-quarters went in 1:13.35, but they were too much for Hero of Humor. However Tiznow R J hung in very gamely as War Story made his closing move and took the lead. That move would not be enough, as jockey Miguel Mena had International Star making the last and best closing move. This son of Fusaichi Pegasus easily passed War Front to win the second graded stakes victory of his career. War Story was able to hold off the gritty Tiznow RJ for second place.

 

 

Jockey Mena said that everything went according to plan, “The plan was to save ground in both turns and wait as long as we can and it worked out. At the three-sixteenth pole he came rolling.”

Trainer Mike Maker reported from Florida, "He's been training very well.  We expected a big race - maybe not that big - but he was coming into the race great.  We'll bring him back to Florida and take a hard look at the Risen Star."