El Padrino Wins Risen Star Stakes at LinesMaker

El Padrino Wins Risen Star Stakes

NEW ORLEANS – Favorite El Padrino edged Mark Valeski in a close fin­ish to win the Grade-2 $ 300,000 Risen Star Stakes on Sat­ur­day, the final prep for the Louisiana Derby.

Nei­ther horse was sep­a­rated by more than a neck for most of the final stretch, leav­ing the rest of the field of 11 up the track.

El Padrino, trained by Todd Pletcher, paid $ 3.60, $ 2.80 and $ 2.20. It was his third win in five career races and his first in a graded race. He went off as the 3–5 favorite, and jockey Javier Castel­lano coaxed just enough out of him to jus­tify those odds.

“You hope it’s the kind of race that he’ll improve from,” Pletcher said. “He’s become battle-tested a lit­tle bit and is get­ting more pro­fes­sional all the time. Hope­fully he’s learn­ing how to win.”

Mark Valeski, part of a dual entry by trainer Larry Jones, paid $ 3.20 and $ 2.40. Z Dager took third and paid $ 3.20 to show.

The Louisiana Derby is April 1, five weeks before the Ken­tucky Derby. Pletcher said run­ning El Padrino there would be one of his top options.

“He’s got two good mile-and-a-sixteenth races under his belt this year, so we’ve got a good foun­da­tion,” Pletcher said. “He’s a big, strong colt. He’s the kind of horse we need to race to get him more and more fit.”

In the 3-year old filly divi­sion, Sum­mer Applause raced wide in the stretch and passed Avie’s Sense to win by a length in the Grade-3 $ 200,000 Rachel Alexan­dra Stakes. Sum­mer Applause paid $ 8.40, $ 4.40 and $ 2.80. Pre-race favorite Believe You Can faded to fourth in the stretch, more than seven lengths behind the winner.

Our sports betting news features unique sports betting articles as well as current sports news compiled from leading wire services. This arti­cle was dis­trib­uted by Syn­di­cated Sports news wire and aggre­ga­tion ser­vice, For more horse rac­ing and bet­ting news see: El Padrino wins Risen Star Stakes .

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