Flatter: Risen Star’s status is good for Kentucky Derby trail

The eager anticipation for the Risen Star Stakes on Saturday feels like it is off the charts.

It also feels familiar. And it feels right.

Maybe this goes against the grain of trendy ’20s discourse. You know. Find the thread of what racing does wrong, pull on it, and make the whole thing unravel with a fusillade of invectives worthy of modern social media.

Don’t look now, but it says here Churchill Downs got a lot right when it lined up this Grade 2 race to be the Grade 1 fork in the road to the Kentucky Derby. This year Track Phantom and Sierra Leone and Catching Freedom and Hall of Fame and Honor Marie will make Saturday as important a moving day as the third round of a big golf tournament.

It did not happen all at once for the Risen Star, and it is hard to know how long this delicate balance may last. For now the recipe works.

The first ingredient was the points system that Churchill inaugurated 11 years ago. It is far from perfect, especially the part that loop-holed three maidens into the Derby between 2016 and 2019. The counterintuitive idea now that two second-place finishes are as good as a win is one that may have to be rued first before it is changed back.

Making the Risen Star the first prep worth 50 points to the winner was simply smart. By franking the race as the first win-and-you’re-in of the season, it made New Orleans a fitting jumping-off point for deciding who will and won’t be in the Derby.

The second ingredient was the lengthening four years ago of all the Fair Grounds preps. The Lecomte (G3) went from a mile and 70 yards to 1 1/16 miles, the Risen Star from 1 1/16 to 1 1/8 miles and the Louisiana Derby (G2) from 1 1/8 to 1 3/16 miles.

Horsemen praised the new distances, especially for horses drawn into wide post positions. The better to make for a fair run for all to the first turn.

The residual effect was even better. Trainers can give their horses a head start stretching them closer to the 1 1/4-mile distance of the Derby. After the Louisiana Derby, it is a lot easier extending another sixteenth than it is to go another furlong.

The only other major prep that goes 1 3/16 miles is the UAE Derby (G2), where horses have to add 110 yards and 7,000 miles to make the run for the roses. So far, no one has figured out how to make that work.

Finally, there is the not so small matter of getting the clinching of a Kentucky Derby berth out of the way early. Like the manager of a baseball team that clinches a playoff berth with two weeks left in the regular season, a trainer has much more control of the buildup. Scheduling subsequent breezes and a final prep is like lining up the starting pitchers for the postseason.

It is not like anyone is going to win the Risen Star and then train up to the Derby. Or is it? In an era when Justify can win a Triple Crown with only six races and Flightline can be horse of the year on the strength of three, would it be such a surprise if someone tried to pull that off between New Orleans and Louisville?

Granted, it is a lot easier to have an older horse go three months between races the way White Abarrio did before the Breeders’ Cup Classic. But unwritten rules like that were made to be broken. The curse of Apollo that jinxed 3-year-old debutants for 136 years was shattered first by Justify and then by Mage.

It did not work last year when Keith Desormeaux had Confidence Game go without a race for 10 weeks between winning the Rebel (G2) and finishing 10th in the Derby. That does not mean someone will not try that again.

This is not an endorsement of the growing trend to race less and less in order to breed sooner and sooner. It is, however, an acceptance of this new era.

Until all these changes gradually worked their way into the framework of the Derby trail, the Risen Star was little more than a blip on the racing radar. War Emblem was the only Derby winner the now 51-year-old race produced through 2018.

In the past five years the race has graduated Country House and Mandaloun. Even though they were asterisked Derby winners, they also were among seven Risen Star horses who hit the board at Churchill Downs since 2019 regardless of the disqualifications of Maximum Security and Medina Spirit.

It is no coincidence that Churchill owns Fair Grounds. Rewarding the track with the first meaningful race of the points-prep season was a corporate no-brainer. That it was done in a go-to destination like New Orleans and that this year it comes at the end of Mardi Gras week are happy circumstances.

Not to be a complete pollyandy here. The points system offers hollow, five-deep rewards for early prep races that deserve no such cachet. Offering international paths to Kentucky is at best a contentious idea and at worst, in the case of the Europe road, a complete waste of time. The UAE Derby, which annually produces Trojan horses, should have been jettisoned from the program long ago. The rewarding of races past their prime should be reviewed in real time with the possible stripping of points if too few horses are entered. Are your ears burning, California?

All that aside, the Risen Star and its role as the true gateway to the Kentucky Derby is a good thing at a time of year when so much of the country longs for any sign of spring. Maybe pitchers and catchers can report to Fair Grounds, too.

Now if we just can find a way to gussy up the old track and keep the turf course in reliably good condition, then maybe we can figure out how to get a Breeders’ Cup to the Bayou.

For now, the beignets and coffee will taste just fine this weekend.

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