Just a Touch chases elusive first stakes win in Louisiana

Just a Touch has run fast enough during his start-and-stop career to have been a stakes winner by now, perhaps multiple times over. The five-year-old's latest attempt to rectify that matter comes Saturday at Fair Grounds in the $175,000 Louisiana (G3) over 1 1/16 miles.

Just a Touch showed enough quality at three to qualify for the Kentucky Derby (G1) less than three months after the start of his career. Although he finished last in the classic,  it proved an outlier in comparison to second-place efforts in the Blue Grass (G1), to Sierra Leone, and the Gotham (G3) to Deterministic.

A head loss in the Iowa Derby as an odds-on favorite, however, was a missed opportunity, as was his half-length loss in the Monmouth Cup (G3) last summer at odds of 1-10. That upset followed back-to-back allowance wins in which he earned 104 Brisnet Speed ratings, and a creditable third in the Metropolitan H. (G1).

Moonlight enters the Louisiana with two wins in his last three starts, including a rallying score in the Cherokee Mile at Churchill Downs. Also lining up are Sir Greylind, a close second in the Tenacious S. here last month, and Willy D's, a stakes winner at Horseshoe Indianapolis last summer and runner-up in the Charles Town Classic (G2).

Idratherbeblessed pulled off surprises, winning the Muniz Memorial (G2) and Buddy Diliberto Memorial last season, but would be far less of one if he can replicate either of those efforts in the $100,000 Colonel E.R. Bradley S. over 1 1/16 miles on the turf.

Gigante, Cameo Performance, Kapuna, and Sand Pipes were not far beaten by Idratherbeblessed over the Fair Grounds turf last season, but Lagynos is perhaps the horse to fear after a series of good showings against graded rivals in Kentucky and New York last term. On the comeback trail is Reagan's Wit, victorious last May in the James W. Murphy S. on the Preakness Day undercard.

A seemingly top-heavy edition of the $100,000 Marie Krantz Memorial, for fillies and mares at 1 1/16 miles on the turf, features the Argentinean veteran Nanda Dea, who captured the Al Stall Memorial over the Fair Grounds turf last February. Medoro brings competitive Grade 1 and 2 form from California for Peter Eurton, while the lightly raced Sweet Treasure was most recently third in the Pebbles (G3) at Aqueduct in her stakes debut.

The stakes action Saturday kicks off with the $100,000 Duncan F. Kenner S. for older male turf sprinters going 5 1/2 furlongs. Bear River captured the Kentucky Turf Sprint (G2) at Kentucky Downs in September, but was most recently up the track to Wendelssohn in the Thanksgiving Classic. Usually Wrong, meanwhile, is a multi-surface talent in the event of inclement weather.