Trust in steady Epicenter unshaken
BALTIMORE — In a sport where the slightest misstep can erase milliondollar dreams, predictability is good. Better, sometimes, than brilliant speed.
Two-time Preaknesswinning trainer Steve Asmussen chuckled Thursday morning when asked how Epicenter, the heavy favorite for this year’s second jewel of the Triple Crown, was doing. The answer is always the same.
“That’s the thing about Epicenter,” Asmussen said. “What’d you see? More of the same. He’s been beautifully consistent in his training.”
Epicenter’s steadiness carried him through two commanding wins in prep races and through weeks of flawless training in the run-up to the Kentucky Derby, where he was poised to win again until 80-1 long shot Rich Strike ran by him at the finish. It’s the reason he’s a 6-5 favorite in the morning line for the Preakness after Rich Strike’s owner, Rick Dawson, pulled the Derby winner from the field.
Epicenter’s calm was on display Thursday when Asmussen took him to the paddock at Pimlico Race Course to gain familiarity with the space where he’ll be saddled for the Preakness. Like a bad airline seatmate, the horse beside him reared up in a fuss. Epicenter stood placidly, declining even to glance at his unruly neighbor.
“He’s got the physical and the mental,” said Asmussen’s assistant, Scott Blasi. “Which is what usually makes a great horse.”
Asmussen had hoped for a chance to assert that greatness by turning the tables on Rich Strike in the Preakness.
“Honestly, there was a little bit of disappointment,” he said. “I wanted another shot at it. That might just be me being ignorant, but you’re here to compete. I’m sure they’ll meet up again down the road, hopefully.”
Even with the Derby winner biding his time in Kentucky, a few formidable contenders could spoil Epicenter’s Preakness.
D. Wayne Lukas, 86, will try to win the race for a seventh time with his Kentucky Oaks champion filly Secret Oath.
Trainer Chad Brown and owner Seth Klarman will try the same formula that worked in 2017, taking on the Derby holdover with a fresh horse in Early Voting.
Simplification will try to improve on his fourthplace finish in the Derby, with trainer Antonio Sano convinced he can do it if he avoids the wide trip that doomed him in Kentucky.
Trainer Kenny McPeek believed enough in Creative Minister’s ascending form that he and owners Greg Back and Paul Fireman agreed to pay an extra $150,000 just to get their horse in the Preakness after they initially didn’t nominate him for the Triple Crown series.
But all week, talk around the Preakness barn suggested Epicenter would have to take a step back to open the door for these challengers. Though he didn’t arrive at Pimlico with the pomp and circumstance of a Derby winner, rival trainers spoke about him as if he were just that. He would have been a clear favorite, they said, even if Rich Strike had showed up.
“He’s definitely the horse to beat in this race,” Lukas said. “He caught a suicidal pace in the Derby, and he won’t let that happen again, I don’t think.”