THE latest round of Kentucky Derby trials headed to the $400,000 Grade 2 Risen Star Stakes at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots last Saturday and the $2.3 million colt Sierra Leone got back in the winning grove.

The Saratoga Sale/Fasig-Tipton 2022 purchase had won his maiden at Aqueduct but lost out there in the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes on December 2nd when the favourite Dornoch rallied to shade him by a nose.

Sierra Leone, owned by the Magnier, Tabor, Smith, Westerberg, Book Smith and Brant, partnership, is the most expensive horse sold at public auction on the Triple Crown trail.

With the addition of blinkers, Sierra Leone came from ninth to catch longtime leader Track Phantom on his way to a half-length victory in what was considered a strong 12-horse field.

Sierra Leone overcame slow fractions of 49.67 for six furlongs, and 1m14.74secs for a mile to win the ‘sloppy’ track renewal in 1m 52.13secs.

“The blinkers really helped him focus today,” jockey Tyler Gaffalione reported. “He got a comfortable trip up the backside and relaxed for me. When he took the lead in the stretch, I could feel beneath me, he is only going to want to go longer after this.

“Given the track conditions and slow pace and that he hasn’t run since the Remsen, I thought he showed a lot to run down a pretty good horse who was in form and fit and didn’t have to ship,” Brown said.

Early favourite

With the victory, Sierra Leone gained 50 points and a likely starting spot in the Derby for which he is now the early favourite.

The Risen Star at Fair Grounds is second in value only to the $1 million Louisiana Derby there on March 23rd but Brown intends running in the April 6th Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland as the Derby prep for Sierra Leone. Fierceness and Locked are also early entires.

Neither Brown nor Gaffalione have won the Derby. Sierra Leone’s sire, Gun Runner took the 2016 Risen Star and Louisiana Derby and was third in that year’s Kentucky Derby.

In the fillies’ trial, the Grade 3 Rachel Alexandra Stakes, Godolphin’s homebred Tarifa, (Bernardini), followed the same connections’ Pretty Mischievous who won last year before going on to win the Kentucky Oaks.

Trained by Brad Cox, Flavien Prat steered the filly along the fence and cruised into contention, three wide two-furlongs out and raced clear in the stretch for a two and three quarter-length win. “She’s a very nice filly, and will only get better as time goes on,” Prat said. The race has been won by five Oaks winners in the last 10 years. The Grade 2 Fair Grounds Oaks March 23rd looks next on the agenda.

AFTER the death of Verry Elleegant, racing lost another fine female performer in the 2021 champion two-year-old filly Echo Zulu who was put down at a veterinary hospital in Southern California last week after sustaining a leg injury in her stall.

Echo Zulu had sustained a sesamoid fracture of a front fetlock last October while training for the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita Park.

Echo Zulu then underwent surgery with the hope that she would be saved for a broodmare.

Trainer Steve Asmussen told Daily Racing Form that Echo Zulu had “become cast in her stall and was injured when she tried to rise to her feet.”

In her Eclipse-winning year, Echo Zulu won all her four starts, including three Grade 1s, the Spinaway Stakes and Frizette Stakes before claiming the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies.

She came back in 2022 with two graded wins in the Fair Grounds Oaks and Dogwood Stakes sandwiched around a fourth in the Kentucky Oaks. At the Breeders’ Cup, she fell short against future champion Goodnight Olive and finished second in the Filly and Mare Sprint at Keeneland. Her final start was a triumphant one in the Grade 1 Ballerina Handicap.

“She was one of the fastest horses in training,” David Fiske, racing manager for Winchell Thoroughbreds said on BloodHorse. “I think she was the fastest horse we’ve maybe ever campaigned. ... But as Steve said to me this morning, the only thing that exceeded her talent on the racetrack was her demeanour and kindness around the barn. So it’s a blow to everybody.”

By Gun Runner, Echo Zulu won nine of her 11 starts and earned $2,640,375.