Echo Zulu

Three yearlings in the Keeneland September Sale catalogue received big updates over the weekend when their year-older siblings captured Grade Is at two of America's premiere race meets over the holiday weekend. GI Runhappy Del Mar Futurity S. winner Pinehurst's (Twirling Candy) yearling half-brother by Cairo Prince sold prior to the juvenile's breakout score, bringing $120,000 from pinhooker Randy Bradshaw at Fasig-Tipton's New York-Bred Yearling Sale in mid-August. However, the winners of the GI TVG Del Mar Debutante S., GI Spinaway S. and GI Hopeful S. will be represented by...

Two sons of Candy Ride (Arg)--Gun Runner and Twirling Candy--were represented by three 2-year-old Grade l winners over the weekend, and do you know one thing they had in common? Each was produced by a Storm Cat-line mare. This affinity for the Storm Cat line was also an important feature of Candy Ride's own success, and breeders appear to be copying that formula with his sons. It's not surprising; it's something that usually happens when a stallion is successful with the females of another sire line, and this type of...

Early in the Saratoga meeting, Steve Asmussen broke the all-time record of number of winners for a North American trainer. It was a remarkable achievement in a remarkable career, and comes at the age of just 55 years old. It turns out he was just warming up. In a remarkable closing rush to the meeting, Asmussen won nine Grade I races in five days, including one a day in each of the last three days of the week when he sent out Echo Zulu to win the Spinaway, Gunite to...

On his drive from Saratoga to Kentucky Downs Tuesday, Steve Asmussen stopped in every state he drove through and bought lottery tickets. Shocking that he didn't win. Coming off one of the greatest week-and-a-half stretches in racing history, during which he won five Grade I races in Saratoga over nine days, Asmussen was this week's Green Group Guest of the Week on the TDN Writer's Room, presented by Keeneland. If that wasn't enough, two of his wins, Gunite in the GI Hopeful S. and Echo Zulu in the GI Spinaway...

Winchell Thoroughbreds and L and N Racing's Echo Zulu (Gun Runner), tabbed a 'TDN Rising Star' following her 5 1/2-length debut victory at Saratoga July 15, will attempt to add to her freshman sire's growing list of graded stakes winners when she goes postward in the GI Spinaway S. at Saratoga Sunday. Her first-out effort earned her a 92 Beyer Speed Figure--the highest recorded figure for a 2-year-old filly this year. "The idea was always that she could be a Saratoga 2-year-old," said Winchell Thoroughbreds' racing and bloodstock advisor David...

Everyone knows how the system works; how lavishly choreographed is the promotion of new sires. Center stage is cleared, the footlights are turned up, the make-up and costume departments go into overdrive. But we also know that most of them will go out there, clear their throats nervously, and murmur a few lines that barely qualify them, in the longer term, for a place in the back row of the chorus line. Every now and then, however, one of these rookies steps up and you sense within moments that a...

Echo Zulu (f, 2, Gun Runner--Letgomyecho by Menifee), a half-sister to young Coolmore sire Echo Town (Speightstown), GISW, 'TDN Rising Star' and earner of $410,020, followed in her older brother's footsteps with a 'Rising Star' debut effort for Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen at the Spa Thursday. The 4-1 chance tracked 3-2 favorite Lady Scarlet (Union Rags), a debut runner-up at Churchill June 4, from second through an opening quarter in :22:07. Echo Zulu, a $300,000 KEESEP yearling purchase, cruised up to challenge for command approaching the quarter pole under...