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Con Lima Sets Pace, Holds Off Higher Truth To Win Saratoga Oaks

After being inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame on Friday, Todd Pletcher visited another familiar spot Sunday, the winner's circle at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. His 3-year-old graded stakes winner Con Lima added another stakes win to her resume, taking the Grade 3 Saratoga Oaks Invitational by three-quarters of a length over Higher Truth.

Gam's Mission broke fastest, but Flavien Prat had Con Lima on the lead with a few strides of the gate, taking over before the first turn of the 1 3/16-mile Saratoga Oaks. Running easily on the front, Prat and Con Lima controlled the pace, setting fractions of :23.64 for the first quarter and :50.02 for the first half-mile. Behind her, Gam's Mission and Higher Truth stalked in second and third, poised to challenge Con Lima in the stretch.

Around the final turn, Gam's Mission made her move first but was not able to pass Con Lima, fading in the stretch. Higher Truth pursued the front runner in the last furlong, making up ground to get within a three-quarters of a length of Con Lima at the wire. Creative Flair, who was taken up early and had to go wide to find running room, was able to pass horses in the stretch to grab third. Plum Ali, Gam's Mission, Out of Sorts, Messidor, and Rocky Sky rounded out the field of eight.

The final time for the 1 3/16 miles was 1:54.42. Find this race's chart here.

Con Lima paid $8.10, $5.00, and $3.30. Higher Truth paid $6.80 and $4.00. Creative Flair paid $3.30 to show.

“I was analyzing the race beforehand and we were the only speed but I wasn't 100 percent sure with a couple of the Euros if they would show some initiative. I left it in Flavien's [Prat] hands and Plan A was to break well and see if anybody would try to take the lead away from us and if they didn't, we'd be happy to have it. It worked out really well,” Pletcher said after the Saratoga Oaks.

“The speed was pretty much me and the Godolphin filly [No. 7, Creative Flair] and it seems she broke a step slow. I broke better than her and I ended up on the lead,” jockey Flavien Prat told the NYRA Press Office after the race. “Going to the first turn I felt really comfortable. I was really pleased with the way she was traveling and I felt we were doing some easy fractions. She really kicked on well.”

Bred in Texas by Lisa Kuhlmann, Con Lima is a 3-year-old filly by Commissioner out of Second Street City, by Consolidator. Purchased for $22,000 from Niall Brennan Stables at the March 2020 Ocala Breeders Two-Year-Olds In Training Sale, she is owned by Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, Joseph Graffeo, Del Toro, Eric Nikolaus, and Troy Johnson. With her win in the G3 Saratoga Oaks Invitational, Con Lima has five wins in eight starts in 2021, for a lifetime record of seven wins and five seconds in 13 starts, with career earnings of $884,865.

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Asmussen Breaks Baird’s Record, Becomes North America’s Winningest Trainer

Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen broke the North American record for wins by a trainer, passing Dale Baird's record of 9,445 with Stellar Tap's win Saturday in the fifth race at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. With that win, Asmussen stands at 9,446 wins over his thirty-five-year career.

The son of trainers Keith and Marilyn Asmussen, the Hall of Famer started his career as a jockey at age 16, switching to training after growing too large for riding professionally. As a trainer, he won his first race with Victory's Halo at Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico in 1986, getting his first stakes race victory with Scout Command in the Bessemer Stakes at the Birmingham Race Course the following year. Asmussen's first Grade 1 win came in 1999 with Dreams Gallore in the Mother Goose at Belmont Park.

The trainer steadily grew his stable over the first decade of his career, logging his first 100-win season in 1995. In 2009, Asmussen posted the single-season win record of 650, also winning the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer that year. With a stable that spans multiple racetracks, the Texas native has won races at all levels, from Saratoga to Lone Star Park to Ellis Park and beyond.

In addition to the record as North America's all-time winningest trainer, Asmussen has won the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer twice (2008, 2009); two of the three Triple Crown classics, the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes; and six Breeders' Cup races, including two wins in the Breeders' Cup Classic. He was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2016.

“How fitting to do this with a 2-year-old owned by the Winchells and who came through Mom and Dad's farm in Laredo and on Whitney Day? I was definitely blessed,” Asmussen said after the race. “To be surrounded by people you love and who love you, and you have a common goal, it's impossible to put into words what horse racing means to me and my whole family and to all the employees. They're family and they know so and are treated as such.”

“I'm very proud of where I came from and don't ever want to forget it. It makes you who you are. I love to be able to share this with my parents,” the Hall of Fame trainer told the NYRA Press Office.

With this record-breaking win, Asmussen moves into the top spot all-time, ahead of Dale Baird, who passed away in 2007. The first trainer to win 7,000, then 8,000, and finally 9,000 wins, Baird's 9,445 victories came primarily at Mountaineer Park in West Virginia, where the trainer owned a farm. Behind Baird, third all-time, is Jerry Hollendorfer with 7,694 wins.

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Asmussen Equals Baird’s All-Time Record With Win No. 9,445

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:

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The Friday Show Presented By Monmouth Park: Kenny McPeek On Swiss Skydiver

Kenny McPeek admits he's not the most conventional trainer in America. Peter Callahan's multiple Grade 1 winner Swiss Skydiver, who McPeek is sending out against colts for the third time on Saturday in the Grade 1 Whitney Stakes at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs. N.Y., is Exhibit A.

“European racing they don't think twice about doing this. In Australia they don't think anything about it,” McPeek said. “American racing tends to 'stay in your lane,' per se. You're not supposed to get out of your lane. Well, I'm not always that. I've been known to do things differently anyways, so what the heck.”

McPeek joins Paulick Report publisher Ray Paulick and bloodstock editor Joe Nevills to talk about the Eclipse Award-winning filly's career and how he decided to run her in the Whitney. He also reveals how he approaches the yearling sales with a limited budget and manages to find some of the hidden gems that have led to his career 100 graded stakes wins.

Paulick and Nevills also review the Woodbine Star of the Week, Munnyfor Ro, winner of the Woodbine Oaks, who poses a serious challenge for the Queen's Plate, a race that fillies have performed very well in over the last 20 years.

Watch this week's show, presented by Monmouth Park, below:

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