Trainer Neil Howard,
in the midst of a banner winter season at Fair Grounds where he is
batting over .300 in trips to the winner’s circle from a modest number
of starters, updated the status of
his leading 3-year-olds during training hours Monday morning in
relation to the upcoming
Grade II Risen Star Stakes, now less than two weeks away on
Feb. 19.
The
Risen Star, named for the locally-owned 1988 Preakness and Belmont
Stakes winner, is Fair Grounds’ final major designed prep for the
$1 million Grade II Louisiana
Derby March 26 as the centerpiece event of the New Orleans Thoroughbred racing season.
Headlining Howard’s updates is his contention that Gaillardia Racing’s
Wilkinson, hero of the Grade III
Lecomte Stakes here Jan. 22, is now being considered for a return engagement in the Risen Star.
“Right
now, I would say it is 60-40 that he’ll run (in the Risen Star),”
Howard said, “with the 60 percent being that he will run.”
In
the days after the Lecomte win, Howard was considering bypassing the
Risen Star with Wilkinson and training him up to the Louisiana Derby,
and that, of course, remains an option.
Courtlandt Farms’
Machen, another talented
sophomore trained by Howard who won his last start in high-level
allowance company by five lengths here Jan. 30, is also being pointed
for the Risen Star.
Courtlandt Farms’
Prime Cut, also a prime
3-year-old in Howard’s barn who had been considered for the Risen Star,
is now not likely for that test. Prime Cut breezed a half-mile Monday
morning in 50.40.
“(Prime
Cut) is entered ‘main track only’ in a race on Friday,” Howard said.
“We don’t want to push him up the ladder too fast, and we want
to get him going two turns for the first time in an easier spot.”
Howard also indicated that William Farish, E. J. Hudson Jr. and the Estate of James Elkins Jr.’s
Grasshopper, although nominated to the upcoming
Grade III Mineshaft Handicap Feb. 19,
would not be a likely starter. Grasshopper, who won the Mineshaft in
2008 and was second by a neck in that year’s Grade II New Orleans
Handicap, has made two starts this season
at Fair Grounds after returning from a 10-month layoff.