Fair Grounds: Catching Freedom is early favorite in Mineshaft

Catching Freedom, winner of the Grade 2 Louisiana Derby last year, returns to Fair Grounds on Saturday as the 3-1 morning-line favorite for the Mineshaft (G3). The 1 1/16-mile dirt route attracted eight older males.

Catching Freedom won last year’s Louisiana Derby on his way to running fourth in Kentucky Derby 150. The Constitution colt finished his 3-year-old campaign with a third in the Preakness and a fourth in the Ohio Derby (G3).

On Saturday he will begin his 4-year-old campaign in the Mineshaft for trainer Brad Cox, who so far this meet has saddled the winner in both of Fair Grounds’s older dirt route stakes, as Saudi Crown dominated in the Tenacious and Hit Show added a fifth graded stake title to his resume in the Louisiana (G3). Flavien Prat returns to the irons and will guide Catching Freedom from post 5.

Catching Freedom is one of five 4-year-olds entered in the Mineshaft, along with Hall of Fame, Tuscan Sky, Batten Down and Maycocks Bay. Each has the potential to make noise in the older male dirt route division this year.

Hall of Fame failed to crack into the 2024 Kentucky Derby Leaderboard, finishing seventh in the Risen Star (G2) and 10th in the Louisiana Derby (G2). But the Steve Asmussen trainee regrouped and returned to the races, putting a winning bow on his 3-year-old campaign in a first-level allowance on closing day of Churchill Downs’s fall meet.

On Jan. 5 in a local second-level allowance, Hall of Fame wired the field by 6 1/2 lengths to make it back-to-back victories. Made 4-1 in the morning line, the Gun Runner colt will be reunited with Jose Ortiz.

Tuscan Sky ran his best race to date in the 2024 Pegasus at Monmouth, when he won by open lengths over Domestic Product. Bet down to favoritism last out in December’s Harlan’s Holiday (G3), the Vino Rosso colt failed to factor, finishing seventh. A lightly raced 4-year-old trained by Todd Pletcher, Tuscan Sky has three wins in seven races, including his one local start.

Ohio Derby winner Batten Down, trained by Bill Mott, held his own with the best of his class last year, including running third to Fierceness and Sierra Leone in the Jim Dandy (G2). A half to Scylla and Tacitus, the Tapit colt has proven most effective at longer distances, never victorious at less than nine panels. Jockey Tyler Gaffalione will take the call aboard Batten Down, who will begin his 4-year-old campaign in the Mineshaft.

Set to make his first start on last year's road to Kentucky Derby in the Southwest (G3), Maycocks Bay was scratched from the race as the morning-line favorite, then took longer than expected to recuperate. Returning to the races in a local allowance 10 months later, the Mike Stidham trainee looked like he hadn’t missed a beat. Last out in the Louisiana (G3), Maycocks Bay run a better-than-it-looks fourth overcoming a far outside post and an unfavorable race shape. Drawing post 6 in the Mineshaft, the Speightstown colt will be reunited with Ben Curtis.