The 2025 main Road to the Kentucky Derby takes things up a notch Feb. 15 with its first 105-point race (50 qualifying points to the winner) when the 1 1/8-mile Risen Star Stakes (G2) at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots provides a logical progression in distance for most of the 13 3-year-olds entered.
Reading through the past performances of this year's $500,000 Risen Star field points to the quality options Fair Grounds affords horsemen with top 3-year-olds as well as a reminder of the varying approaches by plan or necessity.
Last year Sierra Leone rallied from ninth to post a half-length win in the Risen Star and then seven weeks later won the Blue Grass Stakes (G1) at Keeneland at the same 1 1/8-mile distance. That set up Sierra Leone, a son of 2016 Risen Star winner Gun Runner , for placings in the Kentucky Derby (G1) and Belmont Stakes (G1) in the spring before he nailed down a divisional championship in the fall with his victory in the Breeders' Cup Classic (G1).
Let's look at the distance progression of some of this year's Risen Star entrants, who each will be contesting the 1 1/8-mile distance for the first time.
The lone grade 1 winner in the field, Godolphin homebred East Avenue, will be making his seasonal debut. The son of classic-placed Medaglia d'Oro won last year's 1 1/16-mile Breeders' Stakes (G1) at Keeneland before a bad stumble at the start and off-the-board finish in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile (G1) at the same distance. Since Jan. 3, East Avenue has worked six times at Fair Grounds for trainer Brendan Walsh.
While East Avenue has been working his way toward a season debut, six runners in Saturday's expected field enter off of tries of 1 1/16 miles on the Fair Grounds dirt. That group includes the runner-up from the Jan. 18 Lecomte Stakes (G3) in Built, who previously won the Gun Runner Stakes at the same distance in December.
Gun Runner Stakes runner-up Magnitude also is entered. The son of Not This Time most recently finished sixth in the Lecomte. Render Judgment will make his first start since finishing third in the Gun Runner.
Seattle Road has raced exclusively at 1 1/16 miles in five starts, with his past three efforts on the Fair Grounds dirt. The son of Quality Road won a maiden race there in December and enters off a seventh-place finish Lecomte. Jolly Samurai, a two-time stakes winner sprinting at Remington Park, will try to turn things around after finishing ninth in the Lecomte.
And rounding out the Fair Grounds runners is two-time winner Vamos Carlitos, who enters off a runner-up finish in a Jan. 20 allowance optional claiming race.
The field also includes Jonathan's Way, who won the Iroquois Stakes (G3) at the one-turn mile distance in September at Churchill Downs then finished seventh in the Juvenile and second in the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes (G2) going 1 1/16 miles Nov. 30 at Churchill Downs.
As for the other five runners: American Promise has started four straight times at 1 1/16 miles, winning a maiden race at Oaklawn Park Dec. 29; Vassimo will make his stakes debut off an allowance optional claiming win at one mile and 40 yards at Tampa Bay Downs; Chunk of Gold enters off a runner-up finish in the one-mile Leonatus Stakes Jan. 18 on the all-weather track at Turfway Park; Septarian will try two turns for the first time after earning a stakes-placing in the one-mile Mucho Macho Man Stakes Jan. 4 at Gulfstream Park; and Giocoso, a winner of a pair of 1 1/16-mile turf races last year, will make his seasonal debut.
