Saturday is the $400,000 dollar, Grade 2 Risen Star Stakes at Fair Grounds.

It will be the first race of the season to offer the Winner 50 points on the Road to the Kentucky Derby. The contest will award a total of 105 points on a 50-25-15-10-5 scale.

The race was first held in 1973 as the Louisiana Derby Trial Stakes. In 1989, it was renamed in honor of Louisiana-based Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes Winner RISEN STAR. 

The race was extended from one mile and 40 yards to 1 1/16 miles in 1990, and further increased to its current distance of 1 ⅛ miles in 2020. In 2002, the race was awarded Grade 3 status, which was bumped up to Grade 2 status in 2010.

Here’s a look back at three of the race’s most talented Winners in recent years:

MUCHO MACHO MAN (2011) Early on, Jockey Rajiv Maragh sent his mount towards the lead, rating him just behind early leader DECISIVE MOMENT. Entering the stretch, MUCHO MACHO MAN pulled clear, and Won by 1 ½ lengths.

Although he had a solid 3-year-old campaign, including a 3rd-place finish in the Kentucky Derby, it was as an older horse that MUCHO MACHO MAN made his biggest impact. As a 4-year-old, he Won the Grade 2 Suburban Handicap and the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Handicap. He concluded that season with a 2nd place-finish in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Classic behind FORT LARNED.

In 2013 at age 5, MUCHO MACHO MAN avenged his Classic defeat from a year prior. He held off WILL TAKE CHARGE by a nose, while finishing 3 ½ lengths clear of 4th-place FORT LARNED.

———————————————–

GUN RUNNER (2016) He finished 4th in the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes to conclude his 2-year-old season, and while he was impressive in his first two career starts, the disappointing effort in his first Stakes try left some bettors cold and he was sent off at 5-1 in the Risen Star.

Jockey Florent Geroux kept GUN RUNNER in a good stalking spot most of the way, then angled him off the rail as they turned for home. He made the lead at the eighth pole, then held off the rally of longshot FOREVAMO for a half-length Victory.

GUN RUNNER went on to Win three more Graded Stakes that year, and finished 3rd in the Kentucky Derby. But he truly blossomed as a 4-year-old. In 2017, he Won five Graded Stakes races, including four Grade 1s in a row. The year culminated with a front-running Win in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Classic, which sealed a near-unanimous Horse of the Year voting tally at the Eclipse Awards.

———————————————–

EPICENTER  (2022) EPICENTER began his road to the Kentucky Derby with an impressive Victory in the Gun Runner Stakes at Fair Grounds in December of 2021, but then lost his race prior to the Risen Star when second by a nose in the Grade 3 Lecomte Stakes at Fair Grounds in January, 2022.

EPICENTER bounced back in a big way in the Grade 2 Risen Star Stakes. He set the early pace and just kept going to cross the line 2 3/4 lengths in front. He earned 50 Road to the Kentucky Derby qualifying points with that Win. 

EPICENTER later went off as the favorite in the Kentucky Derby. He rated off a fast pace and struck the front at the top of the stretch and looked primed to give trainer Steve Asmussen his first-ever Kentucky Derby Win. But then longshot RICH STRIKE came up the inside and pulled off a shocking upset. Two weeks later, EPICENTER was sent off as the heavy favorite in the Preakness but again had to settle for 2nd, this time beaten by EARLY VOTING.

Later that summer, EPICENTER finally got his headline Victory when he Won the $1.25 million Grade 1 Travers Stakes at Saratoga Race Course on August 27th. The Mid-Summer Derby had been the goal for EPICENTER since his Triple Crown disappointments, and this time the colt came through to earn the first Grade 1 Win of his career.