Fair Grounds notes: Mylute will wait for Risen Star

By Marcus Hersh

Tour Guide and Mylute are two of the more advanced early season 3-year-olds stabled this winter in New Orleans, but only one of them, at most, will contest the Grade 3, $200,000 Lecomte Stakes on Saturday, the centerpiece of Fair Grounds’ Road to the Derby Kickoff Day program.

Mylute definitely will not start in the Lecomte, trainer Tom Amoss said. There’s nothing wrong with the colt, but Amoss and owner Gold Mark Farm are taking a more patient approach and pointing instead for the Risen Star Stakes on Feb. 23 at Fair Grounds.

“Everything is good with him, but we’re planning his races according to what’s best for the rest of the year,” Amoss said.

Mylute last raced Dec. 26, winning a first-level, two-turn allowance race at Fair Grounds by more than 10 lengths over the moderately promising colt General Election. Mylute, a son of Midnight Lute, had an active 2-year-old campaign, racing six times before that allowance-race win, including two autumn starts at Delta Downs, where he was third in the $1 million Delta Downs Jackpot. Amoss said Mylute hasn’t worked since his Fair Grounds victory because of persistent wet conditions and that the colt was scheduled to breeze in coming days.