Week In Review: Shrouded by Big Numbers That Could Be Deceiving, Magnitude’s Risen Star was Still Pretty Darn Impressive

[Wandering Eyes]

We don't often see 43-1 shots winning graded stakes by 9 3/4 lengths, and when we do, those victories are often subsequently proven to be flukes. If you go by the numbers, an off-the-charts, outlier effort like the one orchestrated by Magnitude (Not This Time) in Saturday's GII Risen Star Stakes at Fair Grounds–in which his 108 Beyer Speed Figure equated to a walloping 34-point improvement off his last race–is more likely to be met with pari-mutuel skepticism than enthusiasm when this colt races next, most likely in the GII Louisiana Derby Mar. 22.

But if you strip out the numerical audacities of Magnitude's accomplishment (huge odds, gaudy winning margin, potentially unreplicable speed figure) and focus solely on the visual aspect of his breakout victory, it's difficult to nitpick his performance.

This Steve Asmussen trainee for Winchell Thoroughbreds outbroke the field from the outermost 12 post, and after being initially hustled by jockey Ben Curtis for the first sixteenth of a mile, Magnitude settled into his own energetic clip under a hold while taking intimidating pace pressure from 4-5 favorite and 'TDN Rising Star' East Avenue (Medaglia d'Oro).

Asked to ramp up his run approaching the far turn after brisk opening quarter-mile splits of :23.42 and :23.50, Magnitude drew away from a spent East Avenue, but immediately had to brace for a fresh challenge from the second favorite, the 3-1 Built (Hard Spun), a seasoned, two-turn stakes winner who appeared to have dead aim on the pacemaker into a third quarter-mile split of :24.03.

Set down for the drive at the head of the long Fair Grounds stretch, Magnitude shrugged off Built's bid by the time they crested the three-sixteenths pole, then ran up his margin while soaring home solo through a fourth quarter in :25.18 and a final furlong in :12.72 for a 1:48.85 nine-furlong clocking.

That's the fastest Risen Star in seven runnings (including one year with split divisions) since that stakes was elongated to nine furlongs in 2020.

Beyond that very small sample though, historical evidence exists that Magnitude's trouncing holds up extremely well against longer-term statistics.

Randy Moss of NBC-TV, who makes speed figures for the Beyer team and is also a co-host of the TDN's Writers' Room podcast, wrote on the X social media platform Sunday that Magnitude's final time for the Risen Star “is likely the fastest” 1 1/8-mile win ever by any 3-year-old at Fair Grounds.

The lone exception that Moss's research uncovered was the 1:48 4/5 clocking by Clev Er Tell in the 1977 Louisiana Derby, which predated the modern era of timing races in hundredths of seconds.

Moss noted that Magnitude was assigned a preliminary 109 Beyer in the aftermath of the race, but that figure was “tweaked slightly to 108” by midday Sunday based on revised run-up distance calculations for the Risen Star.

Even still, Magnitude's 108, Moss wrote, “equals the highest Beyer ever for a sophomore at Fair Grounds.”

In 2003, Badge of Silver also earned a 108 when he won the 2003 running of the 1 1/16-miles version of the Risen Star by 10 lengths, Moss wrote.

“The impact of the Risen Star on the Derby picture will be debated, due to the possible existence of a fast-rail bias,” Moss wrote. “But regardless, the performance was still crazy good.”

While Saturday's dirt races at Fair Grounds might have been slanted somewhat toward speed-centric horses, it's difficult to make an overt, definitive case that frontrunners and the inside dominated.

The nine main-track races in New Orleans that afternoon spanned 6 3/4 hours from noontime 'til past nightfall, yielding three wire-to-wire winners, one winner just off the speed, five stalkers and zero closers.

But guess what? Speed is the general winning profile for American dirt racing, and the shortest way around the track is often the fastest.

Sometimes, when we encounter aberrational, unexpected results, there's a tendency to chalk them up to the way the track was playing. Crying “bias” here might be forcing the issue.

That line of thinking didn't stop Asmussen from invoking that very term in his post-win analysis on Saturday.

“We put him where he needed to be, played the bias of the racetrack, and he took advantage of it,” Asmussen said after racking up his fourth edition of the Risen Star.

Curtis noted that he was riding as per Asmussen's instructions by seeking the lead. But even if that game plan was influenced by the Hall-of-Fame trainer seeing how the track seemed to be playing earlier in the day, Magnitude's best shot on paper appeared to be to try and take control by clearing the field anyway. Of his seven lifetime races, the colt's only two previous wins came when he had hit the front by the middle of the race. Now he's 3-for-3 in situations where he's made the lead by the midpoint call or sooner.

Flying under the radar until this past weekend, Magnitude ($310,000 KEENOV, $450,000 KEESEP) has compiled a better-than-it-looks overall body of work that includes five races at a mile or longer (four of them around two turns).

Epicenter when winning the 2022 Risen Star at Fair Grounds | Hodges Photography / Amanda Hodges Weir

He is drawing comparisons to another Winchell-owned and Asmussen-trained colt who was also sired by Not This Time and was also christened with a similarly earthquake-evocative name–Epicenter.

Epicenter won the 2022 Risen Star and Louisiana Derby, and appeared on his way to winning the GI Kentucky Derby as the 4-1 favorite until the 80-1 Rich Strike came out of nowhere to collar him in the shadow the wire.

Yet I'm going to make a prediction that Magnitude's Derby prep path will more closely resemble the career arc of Mystik Dan (Goldencents), last year's Kentucky Derby upsetter.

Recall that Mystik Dan in 2024 put up a 101 Beyer when winning the GIII Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn by eight lengths at 11-1 odds. Then, for the better part of the late winter and early spring, skeptics (rightfully) questioned the repeatability of that lofty figure, because his blowout win occurred over a muddy track in a race where the favorite failed to fire. Bettors only gave him a tepid 4-1 chance to repeat that performance in his next start, the GI Arkansas Derby.

Mystik Dan did fall back to earth, so to speak, when regressing to third in that next Derby prep, taking a 12-point Beyer haircut in the process.

The Arkansas Derby loss wasn't a totally unexpected, but most Kentucky Derby prognosticators treated the result like Mystik Dan was a radioactive bet going 10 furlongs.

That enabled Mystik Dan to coast into Louisville free from unrealistic Beyer-based expectations, and horseplayers let him go at 18-1 odds in the Kentucky Derby, where his well-honed tactical speed and ground-saving post draw from gate three enabled him to ride the rail to a blanket of roses.

So let's just say it: Magnitude deserves to be a very logical, regression-to-the-mean play-against in his next start.

But looking further into his future, this colt definitely has the potential to be a “wiseguy” rebound contender by the time the first Saturday in May rolls around.

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