Flatter: Risen Star has soared over road to Kentucky Derby

The Risen Star Stakes on Saturday is not just the first win-and-you’re-in qualifier for Kentucky Derby 2025. The argument may be made that it has become the most influential winter prep on the road to Churchill Downs.

Before East Avenue recaptures the form he showed before his stumble heard round the Breeders’ Cup or Built proves the long Fair Grounds homestretch can be his best friend, there is a fair amount to unpack on that curtain-raising declaration. Frankly, that whole paragraph needs to be dissected.

Odds and analysis for Risen Star Stakes.

First, the Grade 2, $500,000 feature this weekend at Fair Grounds is one of the seven races that will award 50 qualifying points to the winners. They include the Virginia Derby, which will be run as a points race on the dirt for the first time March 15. Once we reach spring, the seven biggest preps will be run with 100-point rewards for finishing first and 50 for second.

That makes 21 slots worth at least 50 points each. Add the fact that Citizen Bull already has 60 points, and mathematically there could be as many as 22 horses with at least 50. There are only 20 places in the stalls at Churchill Downs, so something would have to give.

History tells us, however, there will not be 22 different horses with that many points. Even if there were, not all of them will be fit or pointed toward the Derby come May. In the 12 previous years of the current qualifying system, there never was a time when more than 17 horses took at least 50 points to the starting gate. The average has been 13 1/4. Frankly, I do not remember a quarter horse being in the Derby, but I am not here to have pun, not even a fraction of it.

Even with tweaks in the points system and the occasional Japan qualifier who gets to use the priority lane, 46 points always have been enough to be among the 20 starters. That probably will not change even with Churchill Downs finally realizing a race in Dubai should not be on the U.S. trail. Now the UAE Derby (G2), which came two noses from having its first Kentucky Derby winner last year, has a direct path. It might be the world’s only non-stop flight to Louisville.

For simplicity’s sake, let’s just say 50 is a magic number. Simpler yet, the Risen Star winner will start in the Derby. Period. They all have since 2014*. I won’t force a look to the bottom. The exceptions, plural, were in 2020, when the Fair Grounds race was oversubscribed and run in two divisions. Winners Mr. Monomoy and Modernist were off the Derby trail by the time the few, the proud, the masked finally were allowed into Churchill Downs that COVID September.

More important than all these numerical gymnastics that will be forgotten when Kentuckiana finally thaws is this unmistakable fact. In the post-pandemic era, the Risen Star has put two horses into the Derby superfecta every year. No other winter prep comes close to that strike rate.

Mandaloun, Epicenter, Angel of Empire and Sierra Leone, all winners at Fair Grounds, hit the board less than three months later at Churchill Downs. Mandaloun was awarded the 2021 Derby trophy after Medina Spirit flunked his drug test. Betting favorite Epicenter was about eight strides from winning before 80-1 Rich Strike blew past him in 2022. Angel of Empire, also a post-time favorite, closed from 13 1/4 lengths back to finish third in 2023. Sierra Leone missed by just a nose last year.

O Besos in 2021, Zandon in 2022, Two Phil’s in 2023 and Catching Freedom in 2024 were the other Risen Star graduates who filled out the top four in the Derby.

This recent trend has been a real turnaround for the Risen Star. In its first 47 years, the race produced exactly one Derby winner. That was War Emblem in 2002. When stewards promoted Country House to his win at Churchill Downs in 2019, that symbolically changed the connection between the two races.

More important was the decision to make all the Fair Grounds preps just a little longer starting in 2020. It was a stated effort to make the races more fair to horses drawn wide. What it also did was give 3-year-olds who come through New Orleans a head start on most of the crop in stretching out. Of the 300 U.S. horses nominated for the Triple Crown, only 13 have gone nine furlongs, mostly in the Remsen (G2) and Withers that are not exactly bellwethers for the Derby.

The sample size admittedly is not much. In the same short period has come an even flukier statistic. Finishing second in the Risen Star has turned into a Derby millstone. Track Phantom went on to finish 11th in Kentucky. Sun Thunder was 11th. Smile Happy was eighth. Proxy wound up missing the Derby and more than 10 months of racing.

Even the most skeptical analysis of the 1 1/8-mile version of the Risen Star must acknowledge the value in going longer sooner, especially when the trend is to race 3-year-olds less and less.

With a subpar blood count forcing Jonathan’s Way out of Saturday’s race, this 53rd renewal of the Risen Star looks like a showdown between East Avenue and Built. I will admit that Septarian’s addition of blinkers could convince me to add him to horizontal bets. Otherwise, I am sensing a two-way fight at the finish.

And then I am expecting the Risen Star to be an influence on the Kentucky Derby again. And fast. If East Avenue were to win Saturday, it would not be surprising to see him soar to the individual favorite’s role in both the pari-mutuel and Las Vegas futures markets.

All this proselytizing about the Risen Star feels a bit like wagging a finger to say a division leader July 4 will win the World Series. Hey, that has worked a whopping three years in a row. It must be fate.

Ron Flatter’s column appears Friday mornings at Horse Racing Nation. Comments below and at RonFlatterRacingPod@gmail.com are welcomed, encouraged and may be used in the feedback segment of the Ron Flatter Racing Pod, which also is posted every Friday.