Steve Asmussen

LNJ Foxwoods' Scotland (Good Magic), last-out winner of the July 21 Curlin S., tuned up for Saturday's GI Travers S. with a four-furlong move in :47.60 (1/68) over the Oklahoma training track Sunday in Saratoga. "It was a good, useful work," said trainer Bill Mott. "He galloped out well and seemed to have good energy and to be moving well. It was fast enough. I think we're fit enough." A debut winner at Gulfstream in March, Scotland was nosed out of an allowance victory at Keeneland in April before taking...

In Risk It (Gun Runner), who made his career debut in Saturday's first race at Saratoga, you had a horse by an exceptional sire, one who sold for $500,000 as a yearling, was taking money at the windows and is trained by Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen. He figured to be a runner, and he was. Ridden by Tyler Gaffalione, Risk It broke sharply, quickly opened up by two lengths on the backstretch and cruised home from there in a race that was never in doubt. A $136,5000 maiden special...

The Virginia-bred Gigante (Not This Time) refused to let Nagirroc (Lea) by in the final yards as he gallantly defended his home turf in the GI Secretariat S. at Colonial Downs Saturday. The 22-1 longshot was shuffled back to last as Mo Stash (Mo Town) took the field through fractions of :23.67 and :48.03. The field bunched up around the far turf and Gigante was rolling up into contention four wide approaching the lane. He forged to the lead with a furlong to run and grittily held Nagirroc at bay...

7th-ELP, $70K, Msw, 2yo, 6f, 3:50 p.m. A $575,000 Ylg KEESEP acquisition by Three Chimneys Farm, CATS BY FIVE is by first-crop sire Audible, who is looking for his third career winner. Exiting from gate three and with Cristian Torres aboard for this Pea Patch debut, the Steve Asmussen trainee out of unraced Catticus (Bluegrass) counts GSW Bob's Edge (Competitive Edge) and SW Watch Me Burn (Hold Me Back) as half-siblings. His dam also foaled a colt Mar. 11 by Game Winner and was bred to Essential Quality for next...

Sunday's GIII West Virginia Derby winner Red Route One (Gun Runner) is expected to make his next start in the National Thoroughbred League Dueling Grounds Derby Sept. 3 at the FanDuel Meet at Kentucky Downs. The Steve Asmussen-trainee began his career with a victory over the Kentucky Downs grass last year and owner Ron Winchell is a co-managing partner with Marc Falcone in Kentucky Downs and its sister The Mint Gaming Hall properties. "I think since he had been successful there last year, we have always had our eye on...

Sent off the third betting choice at just shy of 4-1, Red Route One (Gun Runner) sustained a run for the better part of the final five furlongs and shot past the dueling pacesetters to give his owner Winchell Thoroughbreds a third win and trainer Steve Asmussen a sixth success in the GIII West Virginia Derby. Outrun early, the homebred was third-last to make the first turn as Iowa Derby first-past-the-post One In Vermillion (Army Mule) and West Coast Cowboy (West Coast)--fifth in Altoona--eyeballed one another through honest splits. Red...

6th-SAR, $136.5K, Msw, 2yo, f, 6 1/2f, 4:08 p.m. Sunday's racing slate features a daughter of Into Mischief who fetched $1.2-million at FTSAUG sale when she was purchased by Koji Maeda. MUGEN, trained by Steve Asmussen and ridden by Joel Rosario, is out of GI Test S. heroine Paola Queen (Flatter). TJCIS PPs 1st-SAR, $136K, Msw, 2yo, f, 1 1/16mT, 1:10 p.m. Heading to Saratoga's turf, there are number of first timers here worth mentioning. Sands of War (War Front) brought $550,000 at the Keeneland September Yearling sale and the...

A few weeks before the opening of the Saratoga meet, Steve Asmussen paid a visit to Lexington to see an old friend. The Hall of Fame conditioner stopped by Three Chimneys Farm, as he does regularly, to check in on Gun Runner. "It's Three Chimneys," Asmussen explained with a shrug from his barn at the Oklahoma earlier this week. "It's a beautiful place and Gun Runner deserves the adulation. He is a very special horse." A few hours after he made that statement, Asmussen's star filly Echo Zulu, of course...

Equine or human, history is always about the six degrees of someone in racing's world. For instance, at 100-1 Jim Dandy beat Triple Crown champion Gallant Fox in the 1930 edition of the Travers S., which only featured four entries total. The horse who set up the longshot by engaging in a speed duel with the favorite over the mud was Whichone, a colt owned by Harry Payne Whitney (yes, that important family). And what other Thoroughbred did Whitney own? Well, that would be Upset, who did just that, when...

Winchell Thoroughbreds and L and N Racing's Echo Zulu (Gun Runner) has won three Grade Is and earned an Eclipse Award, but in Wednesday's GII Honorable Miss H. the 4-year-old filly added to her resume when she posted a Beyer Speed Figure of 112--the fastest number recorded by any horse going six furlongs this year. "I'm extremely proud of her race. That obviously was an impressive race and that would put a [big] number on it," Asmussen said. "I'm very happy with how she came out of the race yesterday....

The Dutch imprint goes much deeper than archeological digs, as it is woven into the cultural and political history of the Empire State. New Netherland was never fully wiped from New York's cartographic DNA after the English won a series of 17th-century conflicts that resulted in the region's changing its national standard. The GII Amsterdam S., to be run at Saratoga Race Course this Friday, is a nod not only to the nearby New York town of the same name, but that important Dutch heritage. Formerly the Screen King S.,...

The GII Honorable Miss H. at Saratoga is named after the highly-successful multiple stakes-winning mare from the 1970s. Owned by Edith Bancroft's sons who carried on the family tradition established by their grandfather, William Woodward Sr., the pair founded Pen-Y-Bryn Farm after their own mother's passing. With only four entered, this year's edition is highlighted by the Saratoga return of '21 champion 2-year-old filly and MGISW Echo Zulu (Gun Runner). The Steve Asmussen trainee won her juvenile debut at the Spa when she soared to become a 'TDN Rising Star'...