Risen Star Stakes was run in two divisions in 1989, 1993 & 1995. The 2006 race was held at Louisiana Downs. Risen Star Stakes The Risen Star Stakes is an American Thoroughbred horse race run annually in February at the Fair Grounds Race Course. It is open to three-year-old horses and is raced over a distance of one and one-sixteenth miles on the dirt. A Grade II event, it currently offers a purse of $400,000. The race is the major prep race to the Louisiana Derby and one of many prep race preparing colts for the Kentucky Derby and the Triple Crown. The
Churchill Downs in 1875. His father-in-law, Richard Ten Broeck, was an accomplished horse breeder and trainer, and introduced Clark to horse racing, attending the English Derby at Epsom Downs outside London. Churchill Downs filled a void in Louisville left by the closing of Oakland and Woodlawn, two earlier race courses. The then-rural location was along Louisville and Nashville Railroad tracks, allowing for easy transport of horses. Clark, who preferred longer races to the relatively short ones that had become popular by the 1890s, was running short of funds, and in 1894 sold the track to a syndicate led by William E. Applegate.