The Risen Star Stakes is a Grade II American Thoroughbred horse race for three-year-old horses at a distance of one and one-eighth miles on the dirt run annually in February, usually during the President's Day weekend at Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans, Louisiana.
The event was inaugurated 16 March 1973 as the Louisiana Derby Trial with handicap conditions over a distance of one mile and forty yards with the Indiana bred colt Navajo victorious by one length over Smooth Dancer with Assagai Jr. in third place.
[3] The event that year was won by Risen Star who went on to win the Preakness and Belmont Stakes and be voted the 1988 Eclipse Award for American Champion Three-Year-Old Male Horse.
The Risen Star also has produced two winners of the second leg of the American Triple Crown: Master Derby (1975) and War of Will (2019).
It has also produced two winners of the Breeders' Cup Classic: Gun Runner and Mucho Macho Man.