Asmussen’s colts hitting best stride
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Any good teacher will attest that it takes various levels of patience and coursework to get the best performance out their individual students.
Steve Asmussen, a soontobe inductee into Racing’s Hall of Fame, has called on a variety of training skills to bring Gun Runner and Creator to the doorstep of the 142nd Kentucky Derby at the same, peak level.
Monday, Asmussen’s top 3- year- olds made it through their final half- mile works in advance of Saturday’s race, and they did so without doing anything to shake their trainer’s confidence.
Gun Runner went 4 furlongs in : 50.40, with splits of : 12.60, : 25 and : 37.80 over the Churchill Downs surface while Creator, the Arkansas Derby winner, completed his 4 furlongs in : 50.60, with
eighth- mile splits of : 12.60, : 25.20 and : 38.
Asmussen is unwilling to separate the two in terms of which has the best chance at handing him his first Kentucky Derby victory, but he gives equal praise to the colts who have been the yin and yang in their progression to the elite level.
Gun Runner has had the look of a horse who could make it to the gate on Derby Day from the first time he set his feet down at Churchill Downs.
The son of Candy Ride broke his maiden over the track at first asking last September and has lost once in five career starts, that coming when he ran second over a sloppy Churchill surface in the Grade II Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes last November.
Creator, a son of Tapit, stormed into the Kentucky Derby forefront with his last-to-first run in the Grade I Arkansas Derby on April 16.
The gray colt, quite the opposite of his stablemate, took six tries to break his maiden, finally getting over the hump with a 7 ¼ length victory going 1 1/ 16- miles at Oaklawn Park on Feb. 27.
“I think both horses came into the year with high expectations and you’re hoping for very good things from them, but they’re very different horses to get to this point,” said Asmussen, who has saddled 13 previous Kentucky Derby starters, including Nehro’s second- place finish in 2011. “Creator, he’s always had a lot of talent, and it’s been in him. He just lacked focus in his races.
“Gun Runner last fall, I think he identified himself as a horse who could be a serious 3- year- old. Obviously, we’re hoping for Triple Crown-type races last year with the brilliance he showed from day one.”
Gun Runner has raced twice as a 3- year- old, winning the Grade II Risen Star Stakes at 1 1/ 16th miles by a half length Feb. 20 at Fair Grounds in New Orleans. In the 1 1/ 8- miles Louisiana Derby on March 26, Gun Runner rated just off the early leaders and then kicked on under steady urging from jockey Florent Geroux to win by 4 1/ 2 lengths.
Creator, purchased by WinStar Farm for $ 440,000 at the 2014 Keeneland September sale, finished second in four of his first five starts, including a couple races at Fair Grounds where he had to close into slow fractions. Then, he shipped to Hot Springs and finally got an honest pace to work with on Feb. 27, and jockey Ricardo Santana Jr., went along for the ride.
He graduated into stakes company where he ran third in the Grade II Rebel Stakes. When fellow WinStar- owned Gettysburg ran through an opening half- mile in 46.33 in the Arkansas Derby, Creator’s big stride let him circle foes as he advanced from the back of the 12- horse field en route to a 1 ¼ - length triumph.
“Steve did a great job of … he let him come into his own,” WinStar Farm president Elliott Walden said. “Just mentally trying to get him to come along and progress like a team at the beginning of the season you hope gets to the playoffs.”