Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Gun Runner progressing toward Pegasus World Cup
He was still wearing his Breeders’ Cup Classic morning training saddle towel on the track at 6:30 a.m. last Friday at Fair Grounds, but by now Gun Runner’s connections have earned the right to train him in a Hawaiian grass skirt if they so choose.
The 2017 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner has taken up residence again in trainer Steve Asmussen’s barn at Fair Grounds, the same place he began a 2017 campaign that’s likely to earn Gun Runner a Horse of the Year award. Gun Runner also wintered at Fair Grounds during the 2015-16 season, winning the Risen Star Stakes and the Louisiana Derby, but he is in the waning weeks of residing on any racetrack.
Gun Runner will start in the Pegasus World Cup on Jan. 27 at Gulfstream Park, and after that he will be let down from racing condition and go off to stud at Three Chimneys Farm in Kentucky. And if Gun Runner continues thriving like he is right now in New Orleans, he is very, very likely to go out a winner.
“How does he look? He looks like the Horse of the Year,” trainer Steve Asmussen said.
Gun Runner, who regained all his pre-Breeders’ Cup weight plus a few more pounds, has progressed from jogging to galloping during the last week. Asmussen said he has yet to pin down a precise work schedule to get Gun Runner to the Pegasus. Asmussen said Gun Runner would ship from Fair Grounds to Gulfstream about 10 days before his race and would get in one breeze over the Gulfstream surface. Enjoy it if you have the chance – it will be the last of this wonderful colt’s career.
Yockey’s Warrior loves Thanksgiving
If Yockey’s Warrior ran only in the Thanksgiving Handicap he might be a champion.
Yockey’s Warrior won the 2016 Thanksgiving Handicap by more than two lengths and earned a career-best 103 Beyer Speed Figure. Thursday, Yockey’s Warrior won the 2017 Thanksgiving Handicap by five lengths, running six furlongs in 1:09.60 and earning a 101 Beyer, the second-highest figure of his career.
“If the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Churchill was in four weeks, you’d maybe say he belongs off that race,” said trainer Al Stall, who also owns Yockey’s Warrior in a partnership.
“I thought he was spectacular,” Stall said. “He couldn’t have broken sharper, couldn’t have turned off better for a few jumps to get outside the leader, and couldn’t have pounced any quicker. I’m pretty sure he came home in less than 12 seconds.”
Indeed, he did. Yockey’s Warrior ran his last furlong in 11.78 seconds and got his final quarter in 23.71. It’s good stuff, for sure, but alas, the BC Sprint is not in four weeks, and there is no obvious immediate spot for Yockey’s Warrior.
“Not sure what we’ll do, but I do know we’ll be patient with him,” Stall said.
Stall has Forevamo in feature
It’s all Stall, all the time so far this Fair Grounds meet. Trainer Al Stall had five winners and two seconds from his first nine runners over two racing days, and he has the morning-line 6-5 favorite, Forevamo, in the featured fifth race Sunday.
Forevamo is one of six entrants in a second-level allowance race carded for six furlongs on dirt and also open to $40,000 claimers. He races for the first time since May 6, when Forevamo was last of 14 in the Grade 2 Churchill Downs, and for the first time since being gelded.
“He’s had some nerves,” Stall said. “He wasn’t a wreck, but he was a little harder on himself than he needed to be. We thought this might help him along, and it seems to have done that. We’re anxious to see how he runs at six-dash-five in the program.”
That’s Stall subtly pointing out that such a price on Forevamo would qualify as an underlay on a horse making his first start after a long layoff at a distance over which he’s 1-0-0-0 during his career. Forevamo, who has Jose Valdivia Jr. in the irons for the first time, should get a good setup, however, and looks a likely winner, value or not.
English jockey Adam Beschizza scored his first North American victory when he guided Tabaddol to a win in the second race Friday at Fair Grounds.
Mesoma suffered a catastrophic foreleg injury at the eighth pole in the Thanksgiving Handicap and had to be euthanized, owner-trainer Wes Hawley said.