'TDN Rising Star' Noble Indy (Take Charge Indy) worked five furlongs in a best-of-four 1:01 Saturday morning at Palm Beach Downs and a few hours later landed gate two for his graded-stakes debut in the GII Risen Star S. at the Fair Grounds Feb. 17.
A son of the expatriated Take Charge Indy co-owned by WinStar Farm and Repole Stable, the bay is a perfect two-for-two on his young career, having graduated by 8 3/4 lengths at first asking in a seven-furlong Gulfstream maiden Dec. 3 before running down the promising Mississippi (Pioneerof the Nile) in a first-level allowance Jan. 11 to secure his Rising Star.
“We were just looking for a logical prep timing wise,” trainer Todd Pletcher, a two-time winner of the Risen Star, told the Fair Grounds press office by phone. “He's been doing really well and came out of last race well. There are essentially options every weekend, but we feel like this is a good spot for him.
He continued, “He's shown a tremendous amount of talent, not only in the mornings, but in both of his races. He's a horse with a pedigree that suggests he'll handle longer distances. Right now he's at that stage of development in his career where it's time to step up into the graded stakes ranks and see where he fits in the big picture. We think he's a horse that belongs on the Derby trail and we're hoping he handles each step up in class and so far he has.”
Pletcher told the Fair Grounds notes team that he has been pleased with the colt's progress, both physically and mentally.
“The one thing that we've been working with him a lot is his behavior around the gate,” Pletcher said. “He had a little bit of history of that before he came to us and it was something that we continue to work on. In his first start, he behaved poorly in the gate, but despite that broke very sharply and he handled it much better in his second start but we continued to work on that. The one thing that I think [jockey] John Velazquez has learned about him by breezing him prior to his last race is that he has a tendency to wait a little bit when he makes the lead and he kind of did that in his allowance win. I think he's gotten better about that in his subsequent works and he'll learn how to polish off his workmate and maintain his focus.”
Pletcher said that Noble Indy ships to Louisiana Feb. 14.
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