Gun Runner caps career with win in world’s richest race
5-year-old colt retiring after winning 12 of his 19 starts
Newly named Horse of the Year Gun Runner capped a triumphant week and career by turning the world’s richest horse race into a very lucrative farewell victory lap.
Florent Geroux rode the 5-year-old chestnut to a convincing win Saturday in the $16 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational at Gulfstream Park to take the $7 million winner’s purse into retirement.
Pegasus, the solid favorite at 4-5, easily overcame an unfavorable draw in the No. 10 spot and won by 21⁄2 lengths over West Coast in 1:47.2 on the 11⁄8-mile course. South Florida-based Gunnevera was third, 103⁄4 lengths behind the winner.
Gun Runner, who will retire to the Three Chimneys breeding farm in Kentucky, concluded his career with 12 wins in 19 starts, including the final five starts. He followed victory in the Breeders’ Cup Classic in November with a command performance in the second Pegasus Cup.
“Just a very emotional idea at the time, his last race, everything that he’s done for us,” trainer Steve Asmussen said. “For him to come through like he did today, to overcome the draw, Just so proud of the horse. What a dream come true he is.”
Geroux effectively won the race at the start, sending Gun Runner rocketing out of the starting gate, and quickly settled into second on the hip of Collected, runner-up in the Breeders’ Cup.
Gun Runner surged into the lead with after 3 furlongs and pulled away from West Coast in the stretch.
Conceived by Gulfstream owner Frank Stronach, the Pegasus World Cup was designed to add an elite event to the calendar with an eye-opening purse to provide incentive for extending the careers of horses like Gun Runner.
In two years the Pegasus has become a scene, a glitzy gathering to see and be seen.
With a full program of racing including seven other stakes races preceding the Pegasus Cup, well-dressed women, some in garish statement headwear, created their own day-long fashionable competition. The fancy folks stopped to pose for photos on the Blue Carpet by the track entrance and promenaded on the walkway leading to Ten Palms restaurant overlooking the home stretch, where tables went for several hundred dollars.
Though intended as an elite event, general admission was dropped this year from $100 to $75 and parking from $50 to $20 following complaints by regular horse players.
There has been discussion of rotating the Pegasus Cup among other venues, or at least alternating between Gulfstream Park and Santa Anita in California, to raise the national profile of the event. But Tim Ritvo, COO of Gulfstream Park and the Stronach Group, indicated it will likely remain anchored at Gulfsteam.