Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Red-hot Asmussen barn filled with talented 3-year-olds
With four racing weeks remaining in the 2016-17 Fair Grounds meet, the race for leading trainer is up for grabs. Through Sunday, six trainers each had 22 to 31 winners at the meet, all of them one hot streak away from a title.
Brad Cox has been atop the leaderboard much of the winter and still has a meet-best 31 winners, but no Fair Grounds barn has been rolling like Steve Asmussen’s.
After starting the meet with 13 winners from 81 starts from Nov. 19 to Jan. 31, the Asmussen stable has gone 12 for 35. Asmussen has won with seven of his last 20 Fair Grounds runners and, in the even shorter term, four of his last seven. And no Fair Grounds trainer has a deeper roster of 3-year-old colts than Asmussen.
While Untrapped has shipped to Oaklawn (where Asmussen also has the capable 3-year-old Lookin At Lee) for the Rebel Stakes, Asmussen still has Local Hero for the Louisiana Derby. Local Hero set the pace and finished third in the Risen Star Stakes.
Asmussen also has won the last two first-level, two-turn dirt allowance races for 3-yearolds at Fair Grounds, with Total Tap, who looked decent Feb. 18, and with Resiliency, who looked even better in winning last Sunday.
Resiliency, by Malibu Moon, won his career debut last November at Churchill Downs by nearly five lengths, was off form in a first-level allowance race later that month, then finished an even fourth Jan. 27 at Fair Grounds while going two turns for the first time and making his 3-year-old debut.
He was much better Sunday, racing last around the first turn, making a middle move into contention before the halfmile pole, then finishing off his race with a sustained bid to tally by 1 1/4 lengths. A raw time of 1:42.70 for one mile and 70 yards produced an 86 Beyer Speed Figure, the fifth-highest dirt-route figure recorded by a 2- or 3-year-old this winter at Fair Grounds.
Asmussen called Resiliency a “talented horse” but said via text message this week that there were no set plans for the colt.
Local Hero, meanwhile, had his first work since the Risen Star on Monday, going a halfmile in 50.80 seconds.
Options for Yockey’s Warrior
Trainer Al Stall started the Fair Grounds meet on fire, and after an inevitable cooling-off period, he has maintained an excellent strike rate. Through last Sunday, Stall had won with 25 of his 86 starters at the meet, a 29 percent win rate.
Stall, who has been the leading trainer twice at Fair Grounds, won’t come near his career-best Fair Grounds win total, 42 in 1997-98, but if his stable’s form holds, he’ll finish the season at his home track with his highest win percentage since that meet. Stall, too, has been a boon to his backers, producing a $2.31 return on investment.
Now, Stall is contemplating where to next produce his crack sprinter Yockey’s Warrior, who is riding a three-race winning streak that includes bookend allowance races at Keeneland and Oaklawn and the Thanksgiving Handicap in between.
Yockey’s Warrior hasn’t worked since he won Feb. 17 at Oaklawn, but Stall said all is well and that Yockey’s Warrior will work this week.
“We haven’t done anything with him since his van ride except gallop,” Stall said. “He’ll either run in the Count Fleet at Oaklawn or the Commonwealth at Keeneland.”
One Stall horse who didn’t quite show his best was the 3-year-old Excitations, who was third Sunday as the odds-on favorite in an optional-claiming race at one mile and 70 yards. That race followed a narrow loss to Risen Star Stakes winner Girvin in his career debut and a sharp maiden special weight win. Excitations, by Into Mischief, tracked the pace Sunday in his two-turn debut but came up empty in the final furlong.
“He just didn’t seem to stay,” Stall said. “He’s a fullback-looking type horse.”
Excitations could run back in a first-level allowance race around one turn at Keeneland next month, Stall said.
◗ Ramona’s Wildcat, switched back to turf for the first time in more than a year, just missed getting up in a Louisiana-bred sprint allowance race Feb. 10, and with any luck, she will be up in time to capture the featured first race on Friday. Friday’s is the final evening program of the meet, with first post scheduled for 5 p.m. Central.