Risen Star Stakes Preview, Sat., Feb. 18

Today at the Fairgrounds is the $400K Risen Star Stakes, run at 1 1/8 mi. on the dirt for three year-olds. The race has several graded stakes winners including #13 Victory Formation, winner of the Smarty Jones at Oaklawn in Jan., #10 Two Phils, winner of the Street Sense Stakes at Churchill at the end of October, and #9 Curly Jack, winner of the Iroquis at Churchill in September and runner-up in the Kentucky Jockey Club at Churchill in Nov. The Handicap Wizard has #10 Two Phil’s as the first selection with a total win probability of 19.41%. Two Phil’s projects 2nd in SPD with a 25.3% win probability and first in E1 and E2 with win estimates of 37.1% and 51.5%. The second selection is #14 Private Creed with a 15.05% total win probability, who is the class in the field with a win percentage of 22.4%. Third is #12 Crupi with a total win probability of 13.75%, who projects first in SPD at 28% but with a Coefficient of Variance of 10.11%, representing slightly elevated risk. And fourth is #4 Determinedly with a total win probability of 11.13%, who projects 3rd in SPD with a 20.8% win estimate. Breading down the numbers, Two Phil’s has value at 8-1 both according to total win probability and his final speed projection of 25.3%, where his fair value by that metric is closer to 3-1. That said, his LP projection of 0% is concerning when this race is at 1 1/8 mi. and he only has the 4th best win percentage at 7.4%, putting his fair value according to that metric around 12-1. On the other hand, Private Creed has class in terms of win percentage as a 3-1 horse but is being discounted in the M/L because of his drop-off in form in the last race. Curly Jack is interesting because of his high COMP value of 43%, which may be distorted by the variance of his individual components like E1 in simulation, whose fair value is 8-1 according to win percentage of coming in 2nd in the Kentucky Jockey Club at Churchill at the end of November, when he recording an LP value of 103. He has not raced since then but seems to have had decent workouts in February. In the final analysis, there is value with Two Phils, Determinedly and Crupi according to the final speed projections from the simulation, while Private Creed has value according to win percentage and Curly Jack according to COMP. #8 Tapit’s Conquest could be interesting in this spot as a Brad Cox horse, who today will be ridden by Florent Geroux, but he lost to Determinedly in his last race and otherwise does not have a lot of statistical support for his 8-1 price. The selections are #10 Two Phils, #14 Private Creed and #12 Crupi, and #4 Determinedly.