On Saturday February 17th, Fair Grounds Race Course will host the $400,000 Risen Star Stakes. The Risen Star Stakes is a Road to the Kentucky Derby race, where the winner will get 50 points, 2nd place gets 25, 3rd gets 15, 4th gets 10 and 5th gets 5 point towards winning entry into the 2024 Kentucky Derby. This is the first race of the year where the winner gets 50 points.
The event was inaugurated 16 March 1973 as the Louisiana Derby Trial with handicap conditions over a distance of one mile and forty yards. The event was shortened back to its inaugural distance in 1988 of 1 mile and 40 yards. The event that year was won by Risen Star who went on to win the Preakness and Belmont Stakes and be voted the 1988 Eclipse Award for American Champion Three-Year-Old Male Horse. The following year the track renamed the event in honor of Risen Star to the Risen Star Stakes. No winner of the Risen Star Stakes has gone on to win the Kentucky Derby. However, two runners who have run in the event have gone on to win the Run for the Roses. War Emblem finished sixth at Fair Grounds before winning at Churchill Downs in 2002. Country House was second in the Risen Star before crossing second in the 2019 Kentucky Derby, only to be promoted after first-place finisher Maximum Security was disqualified by Kentucky stewards for interference.
2024 Risen Star Stakes at Fair Grounds Race Course – Saturday, February 17th, 2024. Race and time to be determined as it gets closer to raceday!
