Outsprinted early and fanned exceptionally wide entering the long Fair Grounds stretch, Disco Time found his groove and rallied from 10th in a field of 13 to outkick Gun Runner Stakes winner Built by a neck to win the $250,000 Grade 3 Lecomte Stakes for 3-year-olds Jan. 18 at Fair Grounds.

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Disco Time finished the 1 1/16-mile Lecomte on a sealed sloppy track in 1:47.07. The time was more than two seconds slower than Hit Show's winning time of 1:44.91 going the same distance a half-hour earlier in the Grade 3 Louisiana Stakes presented by Relyne GI by Hagyard for older horses.

Saturday's victory kept Disco Time's record perfect in three career starts after two earlier wins in Kentucky in one-turn races where he had been much closer to the early pace.

Winning jockey Florent Geroux said Disco Time's trip was not how he envisioned but remarked that he was "very pleased with the horse. I felt like I lost a little bit of ground with the runner-up. I felt like he had a little bit of a better trip than mine, but my horse was always able to overcome it and proved he was the best horse today."

Pace-setting Innovator established the lead in fractions of :23.68, :47.91, and 1:13.38 in the Lecomte. In the late going, Built inched past Innovator until both were overtaken by Disco Time nearing the wire. Innovator finished third. Golden Afternoon was fourth and Maximum Promise ran fifth.

The top five finishers received qualifying points toward the Kentucky Derby presented by Woodford Reserve on a 20-10-6-4-2 scale. Disco Time earned 20 points and Built earned 10 to go along with the 10 points he earned for his earlier win in the Gun Runner Stakes. The 20 points for Disco Time and Built rank them third and fourth on the Kentucky Derby leaderboard, trailing Citizen Bull (40 points) and Coal Battle, who also has 20 points but holds second place due to higher non-restricted stakes earnings. Disco Time has greater non-restricted earnings than Built.

Speaking of Disco Time and Saturday's race, trainer Brad Cox said, "Look, I love speed, and obviously if they're fast enough to get there and then keep going, they can separate themselves. But you know, for this horse at this point in his career, I thought it was a great steppingstone forward."

In 2021, trainer Cox campaigned a talented 3-year-old at Fair Grounds after the colt won his first two starts as a juvenile in Kentucky just like Disco Time. That sophomore, Mandaloun, would later be declared the winner of that year's Kentucky Derby via disqualification after having finished third in the 2021 Lecomte.

Now, four years later, Cox, owners Juddmonte, and Mandaloun's regular jockey  Geroux find themselves back on the Road to the Kentucky Derby in Louisiana again with Disco Time, another Juddmonte homebred colt.

The Lecomte typically serves as a steppingstone to the 1 1/8-mile Grade 2 Risen Star Stakes, a $500,000 race scheduled at Fair Grounds on Feb. 15. Cox has won the Risen Star three times, including with Mandaloun in 2021. The trainer is now a two-time winner of the Lecomte.