winchell thoroughbreds | Horse Racing Free Tips

Sunday’s Derby Doings

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.

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This Side Up: A Loss that Takes Us to the Epicenter

“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.

(To listen to this article as a podcast, click the arrow below.)

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.

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Midnight Bourbon Dies Suddenly

Midnight Bourbon (Tiznow–Catch the Moon, by Malibu Moon), winner of last year's GIII Lecomte S. and runner-up in the GI Preakness S. and GI Runhappy Travers S., died suddenly Sunday at Churchill Downs.

Owned by Winchell Thoroughbreds and trained by Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen, the $525,000 KEESEP yearling purchase died from an “acute gastrointestinal situation,” Asmussen said. The news was first reported by Daily Racing Form.

A close third in the G1 Saudi Cup Feb. 26 and fifth, beaten 3 1/2 lengths, in the G1 Dubai World Cup last time Mar. 26, the remarkably consistent Midnight Bourbon breezed five furlongs in 1:01.20 (15/26) at Churchill Downs Sunday, and became ill shortly thereafter.

“Just a horrible loss to the barn,” Asmussen told TDN. “A lot of people loved this horse, and rightfully so.”

Midnight Bourbon's stacked resume also includes: second-place finishes in the GI Pennsylvania Derby and GII Twinspires.com Louisiana Derby and third-place finishes in the GI Champagne S., GI Clark S. and GII Risen Star S. He came within a neck of defeating champion Essential Quality (Tapit) in a memorable renewal of the Travers. He posted a record of 16-2-6-5 with earnings of $3,557,970.

Bred in Kentucky by Stonestreet Thoroughbred Holdings LLC, Midnight Bourbon is a half-brother to GISW Girvin (Tale of Ekati) and GSWs Cocked and Loaded (Colonel John) and Pirate's Punch (Shanghai Bobby). Midnight Bourbon's unraced dam Catch the Moon was purchased by Stonestreet for $240,000 in foal to Shanghai Bobby at the 2015 KEENOV sale.

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Epicenter, Echo Zulu on Track for Asmussen

Trainer Steve Asmussen sent likely GI Kentucky Derby and GI Kentucky Oaks favorites Epicenter (Not This Time) and Echo Zulu (Gun Runner) out to work at Churchill Downs Sunday morning. Exercise rider Wilson Fabian was aboard for both works.

“Both horses are training extremely well. It's obviously exciting going into the Oaks and the Derby to have two horses of this caliber doing so well,” Asmussen said.

Winchell Thoroughbreds' Epicenter, coming off wins in the GII Risen Star S. and GII Twinspires.com Louisiana Derby, worked five furlongs in 1:00.80 (7/26) in company with 6-year-old Gun It (Tapit). He clipped through opening fractions of :12.60, :24.20 and :36 and galloped out strongly around the clubhouse turn and onto the backside with a six-furlong gallop-out in 1:13.60 and completed seven furlongs in 1:27. Epicenter finished his move with a one-mile clocking of 1:44.

“With Epicenter the spacing of his races since December has been very effective for him,” Asmussen said. “We're just trying to put the building blocks and space for him to handle the 1 1/4-miles in the Derby here. I couldn't feel any better with how he's doing here and how he loves Churchill Downs.”

L and N Racing and Winchell Thoroughbreds' undefeated champion filly Echo Zulu cruised five furlongs in 1:00 flat (4/26) outside of 3-year-old maiden colt King Ottoman (Curlin). She clipped off eighth-mile fractions of :13.20, :24.60 and :36.20 and she and King Ottoman galloped out six furlongs in 1:13.20 and seven furlongs in 1:28.20.

Echo Zulu ended her 2-year-old campaign with a win in the GI NetJets Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies last November and returned to gut out a narrow victory in the Mar. 26 GII Twinspires.com Fair Grounds Oaks.

“Her coming off the bench after quite a layoff and a determined victory, I was anxious to get her here,” Asmussen said. “She actually had not trained at Churchill. She went from Keeneland straight to Saratoga, then won at Belmont and went to California. She has taken to the racetrack in both of her works very impressively.”

Working in company was normal practice for the two sophomores.

“It's been standard [to work both of these horses in company] and the company they worked with is who they've been with in New Orleans. We're trying to create more of the same success they had there.”

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