Winchell Thoroughbreds' Epicenter (Not This Time) put in his final work ahead of next week's GI Kentucky Derby with a five-furlong drill in 1:01.00 (3/6) at Churchill Downs Sunday. Over a muddy track, exercise rider Roberto Howell piloted the GII Louisiana Derby winner through splits of :12.60, :24.40, :36.20, :48.40 and he galloped out six furlongs in 1:13.80.
“Honestly I have so much confidence in Epicenter right now I don't think you could overdo it [with a horse like him],” trainer Steve Asmussen Sunday. “He has taken a lot of training extremely easy. And I thought he took the Louisiana Derby extremely easy, how he came back from the test barn and walked into the barn, and that's why his training and his works ever since have been faster, or stronger, than is the norm for me.”
Epicenter has been working in company with Gun It (Tapit), but his workmate Sunday was 4-year-old maiden winner Alejandro (Curlin).
“It felt perfect, knowing [Alejandro] and how he goes about what he is doing,” Asmussen said. “His previous workmate, Gun It, is a very strong, very physical horse…somewhat hard to manage, and that brings out a little extra in [Epicenter], especially getting to the pole, getting off, getting away from the pole and what you are getting out of it. And as you saw today, they were away from it a lot smoother, just a lot easier to the pole. Still strong, still very smooth. I think [Epicenter] is in a beautiful rhythm, and we are trying to create the circumstances and prepare for what we are expecting to happen in the races this week.”
Asmussen also sent out GI Kentucky Oaks contender Echo Zulu (Gun Runner) to work Sunday at Churchill. Last year's champion 2-year-old filly champion went four furlongs in :50.80 (33/42).
Echo Zulu ended 2021 with a win in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies and gritted out a win while making her 2022 debut in the Mar. 26 GII Fair Grounds Oaks.
“I thought she won the Fair Grounds Oaks with natural ability and class,” Asmussen said. “She has put in solid training for the Oaks, and then put in a huge move last Sunday. Galloped from there. [Today's work] went typical for her, an easy half mile. I want her razor sharp and fleet as she can be for next Friday.”
Asmussen will be hoping to win his first Kentucky Derby Saturday, but would not admit to feeling any nerves ahead of the race.
“I'm not running. I'm good,” he said. “I am unbelievably excited to be doing this well with this much on the line. I had a pretty anxious drive last night with rain and thunderstorms for most of it, and if it's meant to be, then it's meant to be, but everything seems to be working out perfectly. This year's Oaks and Derby are extremely exciting with how strong the races look and how well all the horses are doing going into it. It is going to be an extremely exciting five or six days.”
Louisville's Mitch Dennison has been named general manager of racing at Louisiana Downs. Dennison will oversee racing, mutuels, facility projects, and sponsorships at the Bossier City racetrack and casino.
Dennison has served as an assistant to Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen for the past 13 years, overseeing strings at Ellis Park and Louisiana Downs. He had also previously been affiliated with the D. Wayne Lukas barn. Despite his experience on the backside of the track, Dennison said he had an eye on racetrack management.
“I have been active in both Kentucky and Louisiana Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (HBPA) for many years,” said Dennison. “Understanding the concerns of horsemen is very important and should be vital to racetrack management. Kevin [Preston, owner of Louisiana Downs] is new to racing, but immediately recognized that. I have never been more excited about working in this industry!”
The Thoroughbred meet at Louisiana Downs kicks off on Kentucky Derby Day. The 84-day live racing season will run Saturdays through Tuesdays until Sept. 27.
“Mitch is extremely knowledgeable and shares my commitment to showing respect to each of the horsemen and their workers as well as ensuring the safety and integrity of our racing operation,” said Preston. “I like his energy and look forward to a very successful racing season.”
Trainer Steve Asmussen sent his GI Kentucky Derby and GI Kentucky Oaks hopefuls out to work at Churchill Downs Sunday morning. Winchell Thoroughbreds' Derby contender Epicenter (Not This Time) worked six furlongs in 1:12.20 (3/4), while Oaks hopeful Echo Zulu (Gun Runner) went the same distance in a bullet 1:11.80 (1/4).
With exercise rider Wilson Fabian in the saddle, Echo Zulu broke to the inside of regular workmate King Ottoman (Curlin), who was ridden by former jockey Eddie Martin, Jr. Echo Zulu worked through eighth-mile fractions of :12.20, :23.80, :35.60 and :47.40. She galloped out seven furlongs in 1:25.20, according to Churchill Downs clocker John Nichols.
Epicenter, with Fabian in the irons, worked to the outside of Gun It (Tapit) and Martin through splits of :13, :24.40, :35.80 and :47.20. He galloped out seven furlongs in 1:26.20 and the mile in 1:41.
“We're so happy the weather has cooperated on our scheduled work days. The racetrack is in great shape this morning,” Asmussen said. “These were the most significant works for us. We're following a pattern that we're very comfortable with. I love the rhythm these horses are in. Both of these horses have kept their same workmates from New Orleans this winter. I'm unbelievably appreciative of the job Wilson and Eddie have done helping get them to this point.
“They've both started out as tremendous prospects and individuals. We're aiming with incremental improvement to not take too big of a leap forward. So everything is a building block to success. Since they have arrived here at Churchill that trend has continued. I was so excited with Echo Zulu's first work here.”
Japan's Derby contender Crown Pride (Jpn) (Reach the Crown {Jpn}), winner of the G2 UAE Derby, put in a four-furlong work in :49.20 (35/58) under the Twin Spires at 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning. Working from the three-furlong pole, he clicked off fractions of :12.40, :24.80 and :37.20 and galloped out five furlongs in 1:01.40.
Continuing his Derby preparations at Gulfstream Park, White Abarrio (Race Day) worked five furlongs in 1:00.04 (5/13) after passing workmate Stormy Pattern (1:01.04) nearing the wire Sunday. The Saffie Joseph Jr.-trained colt galloped out six furlongs in 1:12.58.
“It went good. I got him in :59 4/5. They got him in a minute. He worked with that horse before the Florida Derby, two weeks out,” Joseph said. “We kept everything the same, the same workmate, a similar pattern two weeks out. That time he ran a 1:02. This time he ran a little faster than a minute. Last time he galloped out in 1:13. This time he galloped out in 1:12.”
Joseph's lone previous Derby runner was Ny Traffic (Cross Traffic), who finished eighth in 2020.
“You just try to keep an even keel. It's a long way to go in horse racing terms–13 days,” Joseph said. “You just want to get through everything and ship up there fine and go into the race the best we can.”
White Abarrio is scheduled to breeze a half-mile next Sunday before shipping to Churchill Downs the following day.
Klaravich Stables' Early Voting (Gun Runner), considered possible for the Derby, worked four furlongs in :49.92 (44/118) over the training track at Belmont Saturday. The GIII Withers S. winner, who has made all three career starts at Aqueduct, was second in the Apr. 9 GII Wood Memorial.
“The work went fine,” trainer Chad Brown said. “He worked easy. It was his first work back and he was moving well. We haven't made any final decision yet on what we're doing in terms of the Derby, but I want to talk to Mr. [Seth] Klarman about it this afternoon a little bit more.”
Working at Keeneland Sunday, Oaks contender Yuugiri (Shackleford) worked five furlongs in company in 1:01.60 (10/20). She broke off at the half-mile pole and recorded fractions of :24.20 and :48.40. Jockey Flavien Prat was aboard for the work, pinch-hitting for Florent Geroux who has the mount in the Oaks. Prat rides G3 UAE Oaks winner Shahama (Munnings) at Churchill Downs May 6.
“She did it very easy,” said Prat. “I was very happy with the work.”
The work was the second since Yuugiri won the Apr. 2 GIII Fantasy S.
Trainer Rodolphe Brisset's wife, Brooke, oversaw the work for her husband, who was traveling back from Oaklawn.
“We got what we wanted this morning,” she said, adding that Yuugiri would work at Keeneland again next Sunday morning.
Also Sunday, Asmussen removed GIII Gotham S. winner Morello (Classic Empire) from Derby consideration due to a foot issue, allowing GII Louisiana Derby third-place finisher Pioneer of Medina (Pioneerof the Nile) to move into the top 20 Derby points earners, and Jeff Drown's GI Toyota Blue Grass S. winner Zandon (Upstart) arrived at Churchill Downs a day after working four furlongs in :48.60 (24/93) at Keeneland.
“The Derby gods.” It's a device that tells us rather more about us than them. We know there's no such thing, really; and that if they did exist, they would find sadistic satisfaction in stringing us along in the delusion that they will ultimately even out their torments and benedictions, only to let the ground fall away beneath us just as we reach for the stars.
But that's actually how our way of life-inherently so frivolous, just a herd of ponies running round in circles-connects us with the fundamentals of our place on this planet. To some among the lucky few to have sieved a horse all the way down from a foal crop of 20,000 into those 20 coveted gates at Churchill, the GI Kentucky Derby will unfold in conformity to some divine dispensation largely unreadable by us mortals. For others, no doubt, it will merely condense the random forces that determine where we finish up in the roulette wheel of life.
To be fair, the Derby gods are pretty flexible about these things. Setting any spiritual convictions to one side, you might say that they serve as shorthand for either “fate” or “destiny”. Fate implies that things are going to happen the way they're going to happen, and that there's no point trying to rationalize why. Destiny, in contrast, might suggest that our fortunes-while indeed inexorable-obey some kind of coherent narrative.
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So which side are you on? If you're not quite sure, then ask the same question another way. After what happened to Midnight Bourbon (Tiznow), are you now looking to those Derby gods to clear a path for Epicenter (Not This Time)?
Because if you were directing our little world from on high, right now you would surely be feeling pretty disgusted with yourself. Of all horses, you chose Midnight Bourbon!
His loss was attributed to some out-of-the-blue “gastrointestinal event”. Well, if even those of us who admired him from afar felt some empathetic nausea, on hearing the news, how must it feel for those closest to a creature that had, until that moment, appeared the very incarnation of physical majesty in the Thoroughbred?
Because if we were in the business of perceiving some latent pattern in the chaos around us, then we would have to discern some almost witting purpose in the alacrity with which Midnight Bourbon salvaged our community, at an especially vulnerable moment, from fresh disaster.
Moreover in that split second when he somehow retrieved his balance in the GI Haskell S. roughhouse last summer, Midnight Bourbon exhibited a blend of athleticism and courage, exceptional genetic attributes of body and soul, that promised a further redemption. And that was to the sire-line extending through Tiznow to Man o' War and ultimately the Godolphin Arabian.
Now, sadly, that heritage has again been rendered precarious. We have lost something precious, equally, in Midnight Bourbon's maternal line: his mother was bred from a mare who duplicated the 29-for-45 Bayou legend Monique Rene not only as her own second dam, but also as that of her sire Yes It's True.
Not too many breeders would have doubled down there, and fewer yet would have combined the result with Tiznow, himself son of the Cinderella blue hen Cee's Song. But the result was such a physical paragon that he raised $575,000 as a yearling and then earned nomination at least as Best Supporting Actor in the sophomore crop.
Midnight Bourbon (inside) misses Travers victory by a neck | Credit: Sarah Andrew
In running Essential Quality (Tapit) to a neck in their duel for the GI Travers S., Midnight Bourbon confirmed himself the perfect foil to a nearly robotic rival. Their respective win ratios could scarcely have been in starker contrast: that day Essential Quality went to eight-for-nine, while Midnight Bourbon has now exited with just two wins from 16 starts. Yet he yielded little to his rival, in terms of merit or consistency.
Instead he volunteered himself as a champion for those of us uncomfortable with the exorbitant value our industry places on first place, distilled in the bitter axiom “second sucks”. There's something so engaging, romantic almost, about a horse whose strivings tend to be as unavailing as they are unmistakably ardent.
That's why Midnight Bourbon will have been especially cherished by anyone who responds to sport as a mirror to life; and why any such person will be imploring Epicenter, representing the same owner and trainer, to meet his cue at Churchill.
Not because winning the Derby would serve as any kind of salve to their present pain, even for a trainer whose resume contains so few other omissions. No horseman would even begin to understand the notion that there might be any kind of equivalence between this disaster and any such triumph-other, that is, than as the famous “twin impostors” of Kipling's poem.
And that's the point really. The Derby gods can't actually redress what happened on their home patch this week. All they can do is make us shake our heads and thank the Thoroughbred, not for piecing together a puzzle we can never solve, but just for taking us closer-through all the joys and sufferings they bring us-to the mystery and wonder of life.
A bit like, say, when you sit out on the deck at Saratoga on a sultry summer night and gaze at the stars as you tinkle the ice in your midnight bourbon. Yes, even his name was perfect. Here was a horse that reminded us of the shared margin between grandeur and spirit in the elite racehorse, and rebuked our puerile obsession with first place.
How heartbreaking, that this living hymn to vitality should have been so abruptly, so cruelly, reduced to the most harrowing indignities of mortality. Midnight Bourbon has been denied the legacy he deserved, in the breed itself, and must make do with a less tangible immortality in our memories and hearts.
These, too, will be finite. In the meantime, however, let's raise a midnight toast to the lesson he bequeaths. For while those racing gods may not be interested in what horsemen may or may not “deserve”, here was a horse that at least showed us what it is to be worthy.
