Horse Racing Betting - Louisiana Derby

By Jordan Walters
WagerWeb.com Contributing Writer

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Saturday's Grade II, $600,000 Louisiana Derby features a field of nine, with Pyro clearly the horse to beat.

In fact, this may be the week that Pryo, who won the Risen Star Stakes on Feb. 9 in his 2008 debut, stamps himself as the best 3-year-old in the country not named War Pass.

Trained by Steve Asmussen, Pryo is the 7-5 morning-line favorite and will start from Post 3 with Shaun Bridgmohan again in the saddle.

Following a win in his first-ever start, Pyro was third in an allowance race and then posted two straight second-place finishes in the Champagne Stakes and Breeders' Cup Juvenile. It was War Pass, incidentally, who got the best of Pyro in those two stakes races (at the Juvenile, Pyro acted up in the gate before finishing second on a sloppy track).

Pyro has been the talk of the historic Fair Grounds Race Course since blowing past seven horses down the stretch to win going away in the Grade 3 Risen Star at the same track.

Since the start of the year, Asmussen has used Horse of the Year Curlin and multiple graded stakes winner Zanjero as occasional workmates for Pyro. Asmussen hoped that Pyro would learn from his more refined stablemates.

"With Pyro, I think we have an extremely talented individual, without the maturity that Curlin and Zanjero have exhibited through their experiences," Asmussen said. "He's obviously a fast horse. What I am trying to create with him is more of the middle of the race, point A to point B. His workmates have been designed for him to find that rhythm."

Pyro breezed an easy half-mile in 50.80 seconds Monday after doing his major Louisiana Derby work last week.

"I loved how he came out of the [last] work, and trusted him to do right, and he did," Asmussen said.

 

If all goes according to plan Pyro will race in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland on Saturday, April 12 prior to the Kentucky Derby.

Second-favorite Tale of Ekati has been off since Oct. 27 when he finished a well-beaten fourth in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile.

Since then, trainer Barclay Tagg has been very cautious with his colt. A former Derby winner with Funny Cide, Tagg did not like the way Tale of Ekati had been training at Gulfstream Park early in the year and moved him to Palm Meadows. Since that time, he has been training like a monster, posting several bullet works, including five furlongs in 1:00.30 March 3.

"He's training very, very nicely," Tagg said. "I'm very pleased with where he is, though I would have liked to have had another work in him."

Tale of Ekati He is 2-1-0 from four starts. Edgar Prado will ride for the first time.

Last year, favorite Circular Quay won the Louisiana Derby and was one of four horses from the race to run in the Kentucky Derby. But the last time a Louisiana Derby entry went on to win the Kentucky Derby was in 2003. That horse was Tagg's Funny Cide, who was coming off a second-place finish at the Fair Grounds.Louisiana Derby field.

1. Stevil, 122, Calvin H. Borel
2. My Pal Charlie, 122, Julien R. Leparoux
3. Pyro, 122, Shaun Bridgmohan
4. J Be K, 122, Kent J. Desormeaux
5. Unbridled Vicar, 122, Corey J. Lanerie
6. Tale of Ekati, 122, Edgar S. Prado
7. Blackberry Road, 122, Robby Albarado
8. Yankee Bravo, 122, Alex O. Solis
9. Majestic Warrior, 122, Garrett K. Gomez

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