Two years ago, trainer Terry Brennan brought Siem Riep to Ellis Park in Henderson, Ky., for the Kentucky Downs Preview's mile stakes. It was the first start since the gelding had been purchased for $117,000 at the Fasig-Tipton horses of racing age sale a month earlier. Siem Riep led all the way until getting nailed at the wire by a neck.
Unfortunately, that was Siem Riep's last race for almost two years, as he suffered a soft-tissue injury preparing for the mile stakes at Kentucky Downs.
Now the Arkansas-based Brennan brought the horse back to Ellis Park, this time for the $100,000 Kentucky Downs TVG Preview Turf Sprint. He says the 7-year-old Siem Riep is completely sound — “He's had so many ultrasound tests that I could have bought the machine,” he quips — and the gelding doesn't even wear protective bandages while training.
Brennan got one prep into Siem Riep, a front-runner around two turns who closed to take second by a head in a Lone Star Park allowance race July 11. That marked the first time the son of Tapit had sprinted.
Siem Riep also was second in the Preview mile stakes in 2018, again leading until very late.
Asked if he thought he'd found a new home sprinting for Siem Riep, Brennan joked, “I don't know. I just hope we can put together more than two races.”
Trainer Dallas Keen shipped My Boanerges almost 700 miles from Oklahoma's Remington Park to Ellis Park in Henderson, Ky., to run for less money and tougher competition than if he'd sent the 5-year-old gelding to Albuquerque to race against fellow New Mexico-breds.
My Boanerges is the 3-1 favorite in Saturday's $100,000 Kentucky Downs TVG Preview Turf Sprint at the RUNHAPPY Ellis Park Meet. He enters off two stakes victories against open company in his last two starts at Texas' Lone Star Park, including beating the Preview Turf Sprint's 7-2 second choice Archidust in his previous race.
“For a sprinter, he's probably the best I've had,” said Keen, who began training in 1986. “I just know the horse. He's going to give me his all.”
With $25,000 of the Turf Sprint's purse reserved for Kentucky-breds through Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund supplements, My Boanerges is running for $75,000. Had Keen chosen to wait two weeks and ship only 545 miles to The Downs at Albuquerque, the gelding probably would be no higher odds than 1-to-5 in the $100,000 Casey Darnell restricted to New Mexico-breds at the same 5 1/2-furlong distance on dirt.
But Keen and owners Nancy and David Lock are looking at an even bigger prize: The Preview Turf Sprint winner gets an automatic fees-paid spot in Kentucky Downs' $1 million FanDuel Turf Sprint, which in turn is a “Win And You're In” qualifier for a free spot in the $1 million Breeders' Cup Sprint at Del Mar. Horses that aren't Kentucky-breds still compete for $550,000 – America's richest turf sprint outside the Breeders' Cup — in the Grade 3 FanDuel race.
However, if the Kentucky Downs stakes gets an overflow field, which is quite possible, preference is given to graded-stakes winners. My Boanerges hasn't had the opportunity to even run in a graded stakes, which are in relative short supply in the turf sprint division.
“The Locks started noticing the race at Kentucky Downs,” Keen said at Ellis Park Thursday. “Then we found out about this race, a win-and-you're in for Kentucky Downs. Him not having any graded-stakes money, we knew if we were going to dream big about the Breeders' Cup, we were going to need some graded money or go a different route.”
This weekend's seven Preview stakes providing a path to Kentucky Downs “opens the door to horses that might get (stuck) on the side because they don't have the graded money,” Keen said.
By the way, Keen says Boanerges “is a word out of the Bible, a nickname for a couple of Jesus' disciples.” That's James and John, according to online dictionaries, with Boanerges meaning “son of thunder” in Ancient Greek from Hebrew. Today it also means a preacher or orator.
My Boanerges has certainly provided thunder on the racetrack. After a third in his debut before which he got loose on the track at New Mexico's Zia Park, the gelding has never been worse than second in 10 starts, with seven victories. He went to the sidelines after his 3-year-old year, before missing his entire 4-year-old season.
My Boanerges' misfortunate proved a happy turn of events for Keen, who was stabling in Houston at the time.
“A few years back, I'd trained for the Locks,” he said. “When the COVID shut down racing in New Mexico, they contacted me. He was coming off a layoff. By the time we had him ready to run, he'd been off almost a year and a half.”
My Boanerges had never before raced on turf. The gelding finished second in his first two starts at the Dallas-Fort Worth area's Lone Star Park, including an off-the-turf allowance race, then swept the two stakes, one of which also came off the turf.
“Just didn't really know,” My Boanerges' preferred surface, Keen said. “And, too, a lot of times you enter for turf and you run in the mud anyway. Didn't really know if he liked mud, either. The first time he ran on turf, it was obvious his first few jumps that he liked it.”
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Keen believes the speedster will be content to rate behind a horse if necessary.
“The first time I ran him coming off the layoff, a horse kind of acted up in the gate,” he said. “He turned his head right when they popped the gates. Normally he's on the lead. But he actually came from off the pace that day and ran second, got beat a head. He'll stay running, even if he's not on the lead.”
Have we seen his fastest? “It seems like he keeps getting better to me,” Keen said. “He's happy right now.”
Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen tied the late Dale Baird as North America's winningest thoroughbred trainer as long-time client Mike McCarty's 4-year-old colt Shanghai's Dream captured the sixth race Friday at Ellis Park in Henderson, Ky.
The victory was the 9,445th (out of 45,905 starts) for Asmussen in a career that officially began with a ninth-place finish by Track Ambassador in a $2,100 maiden race at Ruidoso Downs on June 5, 1986.
Earlier in the afternoon, Asmussen won Saratoga's fourth race as Jalen Journey romped by 8 1/2 lengths. Jalen Journey and Shanghai's Dream were the only two horses the barn ran Friday. They have three in at Ellis Park on Saturday, along with six at Saratoga, two at Louisiana Downs and three at Monmouth Park.
Asmussen watched the Ellis Park simulcast from Saratoga Race Course in upstate New York, surrounded by his family and a media gaggle, as Shanghai's Dream rallied from last of five under Rafael Bejarano for the landmark-matching triumph to beat 43-1 shot Orient Magic by three-quarters of a length.
Steve Asmussen watched the historic win from Saratoga
“That's how I feel about it, it was meant to be,” Asmussen, a four-time Ellis Park leading trainer, said by phone. “Unbelievably significant win to me and the family. To be able to share the lead-up, getting close, all of the unbelievable support I've had and the well wishes, to be able to get to 9,445 — which we've strived for quite some time — to be surrounded by family, what could be better?
“We had a winner in the fourth race at Saratoga to get one away. And then obviously the only other horse today ties the record, and we have several chances tomorrow to stand alone, so to speak.”
Including at Ellis Park.
Shanghai's Dream gets the job done under Rafael Bejarano, giving Steve Asmussen career win No. 9,445
Asmussen is running second-choice Archidust in Saturday's Ellis finale, the $100,000 Kentucky Downs TVG Preview Turf Sprint and Stillchargingmaria in the $100,000 Kentucky Downs TVG Preview Dueling Grounds Oaks as Kentucky Downs TVG Preview Weekend kicks off. He also has a horse running in a non-stakes race on the undercard.
“We have two good chances in the stakes, so we'll see what we can do,” Asmussen said.
On Sunday, the last of his five Ellis entrants is Henley's Joy in the $125,000 Kentucky Downs TVG Preview Turf Cup.
Darren Fleming, who is overseeing Asmussen's Ellis operation this summer, has worked for the trainer since 1994. He says his long-time boss and friend — Asmussen named one of his sons Darren for Fleming — is just making good on a vow made even before then.
“We were talking at lunch and he said he wanted to be the best,” said Fleming, who was working in the Louisiana Downs racing office at the time, before he began working for Asmussen. “He was going to be the best and win the most ever.”
And Fleming thought?
“Hmm. Me, too,” he said with a laugh. “We were kids back then. But he had that goal, and he usually got done what he said he was going to get done… I don't think he's changed much. He was exactly the same when he was young. Like everything mattered, was regimented, wanted it done this way. He had the same ideas back then. I think he honed them a lot and improved a lot.”
Asmussen remembers that conversation in the early 1990s, saying, “Darren told his wife, 'He'll do it or he'll die trying.' I didn't know if that was a compliment or not.”
Fleming reflects that it was probably around 5,000 wins that he started thinking Asmussen could surpass Baird. “When the numbers got up there, and you thought it was attainable,” he said. “Then every year it got closer.”
After the race, Fleming said: “It's nice that it happened in Kentucky. I mean, he's done a lot of good here and it's been good to him.”
What did Asmussen say when they spoke by phone immediately after the race? “He said, 'Now I can go to Disneyland,'” Fleming reported.
Longtime assistant Darren Fleming holds the sign commemorating Steve Asmussen's record-tying win
Asmussen said it was fitting that his long-time assistant saddled the horse that matched the mark, given how much he relies on key assistants such as Fleming and Scott Blasi.
“The significance of it is that we do this collectively, and we do it as hard as we can at every level,” said Asmussen, the all-time winningest trainer at Churchill Downs. “I think that is extremely important. For anybody to think it's easy to win races at lesser places ought to try it – jump right in. Growing up running horses in south Texas, starting out in New Mexico at mixed meets, I honestly believe that being tied with Dale Baird and reaching 9,445 is so significant to me because I realize how hard it is to win any horse race.
“We'll celebrate this as a family for quite some time. It's a wonderful feeling to achieve this, and to be surrounded by people that love you.”
Turf writer Jennie Rees interviewed Asmussen when he was 11 wins shy of Dale Baird. Watch below:
Ellis Park will host “a conversation” between Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas and Eclipse Award-winning trainer Dale Romans Saturday, Aug. 14. Called “D. Wayne and Dale: A Conversation,” the event will see the two charismatic personalities interview each other, tell stories, and take questions from the public. Third generation Henderson horseman John Hancock will introduce the pair.
“We wanted something special for the public as a prelude to Ellis Park Derby Day,” said Jeff Inman, Ellis Park's general manager. “Wayne is on the short list for the all-time great trainers, and we're fortunate that for the first time he's stabled with us this summer. We want our fans to get the chance to not just see him saddling a horse or in the winner's circle, but really up close and personal. The same is true with Dale.”
The conversation will take place at 11 a.m. CT in the Ellis Park beer garden pavilion. Admission is free. Commemorative postcards will be available for fans to get autographs, with donations accepted to benefit Second Stride.
