TRIPLE CROWN RATINGS

REMARKS: The original schedule for Risen Star after he won the Louisiana Derby at the New Orleans Fair Grounds March 13 was to run in the Jim Beam Stakes at Turfway Park in Florence, Ky., three weeks later.

But then Louie Roussel, the trainer of the Secretariat colt, looked at the calendar and saw that the Turfway race came during Easter weekend. He called Turfway and said: “You’re running your race on Holy Saturday. We never run any of our horses on a holy day.”

Tommy Trotter, a member of The Times’ Triple Crown panel, never heard of such a thing. “When I was working in New York, Jewish owners would occasionally skip races because of their holy days, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen a Catholic do it,” Trotter said.

Needing a race, then, to get his horse ready for the Kentucky Derby May 7, Roussel took Risen Star to Kentucky and ran him last Saturday in Keeneland’s Lexington, a stake that also drew two other top 3-year-olds--Forty Niner and Stalwars.

Fighting jockey Chris McCarron much of the way, Stalwars finished third, 12 lengths out of it, while the other two colts fought each other through the stretch, with Risen Star winning the 1 1/16-mile race by a head.

The result caused a chain reaction in the ratings: Winning Colors, the filly who won the Santa Anita Derby, moved to the top for the first time, Forty Niner dropped out of first place, Risen Star finally made the list and Stalwars dropped out of sight.

Neither Winning Colors nor Risen Star is scheduled to run again until the Derby. There’s considerable doubt whether Stalwars’ handlers will consider the Derby, and Forty Niner might be iffy as well.

Woody Stephens, Forty Niner’s trainer, has been the last of the doubters regarding the colt’s potential to handle the Derby distance of 1 miles, but now even the usually cocksure trainer is questioning. Forty Niner’s sire is Mr. Prospector, an excellent stallion, but his progeny rarely have the stamina to handle the classic distances.

“Maybe Forty Niner is just a great miler,” Stephens said. “I’ll just have to sit down with (owner) Seth Hancock and discuss our options.”

Stephens, who has won the Derby twice, has two other leading 3-year-olds--Digress, scheduled to run in the Blue Grass at Keeneland April 28, and Cefis, due to run in the Derby Trial at Churchill Downs two days later.

“Cefis is my top Derby horse right now,” Stephens said in an abrupt re-evaluation. “I’m very high on him right now, and I’m sure that he’ll get the mile and a quarter. His family loved Churchill Downs, and I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t run a big race there.”

Cefis’ sire, Caveat, won the 1983 Derby Trial, had a rough trip while finishing third in the Derby and then gave Stephens his second of five straight wins in the Belmont Stakes. Caveat was a son of Cannonade, who won the Derby for Stephens in 1974.

With trainer Wayne Lukas likely to run a 3- or 4-horse entry in the Derby, Winning Colors and her stablemates will probably go off the favorite. But the big filly still doesn’t rank high in Stephens’ book: “I don’t think she’s as good as Lukas’ other filly (Althea, who won the Arkansas Derby in 1984 before beating only one horse at Churchill Downs), and I killed her in the Derby with Swale. Winning Colors got loose in the Santa Anita Derby, but you don’t win many Kentucky Derbys that way. She may be great, but she has to prove it. She’s got to do something out of California.”

After the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct and the Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park this Saturday, the Blue Grass will be the only major race remaining on the Derby trail.

The Wood features Brian’s Time, Private Terms, Cherokee Colony and Seeking the Gold, with Dynaformer, Tejano, Perfect Spy, Pleasant Evening and Sewickley also probable. Some of the Arkansas Derby contenders are Mi Preferido, Sea Trek, Din’s Dancer, Notebook, Success Express, Proper Reality and Primal.

Advisory panel for The Times’ Triple Crown Ratings: Lenny Hale, vice president for racing at Aqueduct, Belmont Park and Saratoga; Frank (Jimmy) Kilroe, vice president for racing at Santa Anita; and Tommy Trotter, racing secretary at Gulfstream Park.

Career Horse S 1 2 3 Earnings 1.Winning Colors 6 5 1 0 $470,150 2.Forty Niner 11 7 3 0 921,870 3.Brian’s Time 7 3 1 1 391,619 4.Private Terms 6 6 0 0 382,928 5.Cherokee Colony 7 2 3 0 302,200 6.Seeking the Gold 5 4 1 0 128,650 7.Risen Star 8 6 2 0 262,392 8.Lively One 7 3 2 1 202,850 9.Mi Preferido 6 4 0 1 306,675 10.Kingpost 12 3 3 4 440,640