Four Breeders’ Cup horses trained by Steve Asmussen arrived at Santa Anita Park Sept. 26, but the specific Breeders’ Cup races for two of them, Gunite and Echo Zulu , are still to be determined. They are eligible for multiple Breeders’ Cup races.
At Churchill Downs for racing Sept. 27, the Hall of Fame trainer said dual grade 1-winner Gunite did not catch the “circumstances on the day at Parx that anybody would have wanted” when Winchell Thoroughbreds’ homebred Gun Runner colt was upset over a sloppy track when second in the Sept. 23 Parx Dirt Mile.
Watch: Asmussen Discusses Breeders’ Cup Lineup
So Asmussen and Winchell Thoroughbreds will wait to decide whether to pursue the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile (G1) around two turns at Santa Anita Nov. 4, or the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Sprint (G1) at six furlongs that same day. The colt’s two grade 1 victories have come around one turn at seven furlongs in this year’s Forego Stakes (G1) and the Hopeful Stakes (G1) as a 2-year-old in 2021. A multiple stakes winner at six furlongs, he weakened to fourth around two turns in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile last year at Keeneland.
Gunite defeats Elite Power in the Forego Stakes at the Saratoga Race Course
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Gunite shares common ownership with the standout 4-year-old filly Echo Zulu, who races for Winchell Thoroughbred and L and N Racing. A champion two years ago during her 2-year-old season, this year she has posted some of the fastest speed figures by any sprinter—male or female. Her connections are considering running her against males in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint (G1), which offers double the purse of the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (G1) at seven furlongs, though the latter race is also an option.
“I think that we’re still on the fence a little bit (as) to who goes where. But, we’ll let their training at Santa Anita dictate where we think that they belong,” Asmussen said of Gunite and Echo Zulu.
The trainer’s other two recent arrivals to Santa Anita—grade 1 winners Clairiere and Society , who race for different ownership—are respectively pointed to the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Distaff (G1) and Breeder’s Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (G1).
Asmussen, an eight-time Breeders’ Cup winner, said he is hopeful more from his large stable could join them in the next week but that he did not plan on sending any of his 2-year-olds west for the championship-defining main-track races such as the Breeder’s Cup Juvenile (G1) or Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1).
The early arrival of his first four, overseen at Santa Anita by his trusted assistant Scott Blasi, was done to give them “plenty of time to settle in and acclimate and just be positive of what condition we are in going into obviously very important races,” Asmussen said.
He has typically sent his horses west during the early autumn when California has hosted the Breeders’ Cup. He won the Breeders’ Cup Sprint with Mitole when Santa Anita last held the event in 2019. Two years ago, Echo Zulu triumphed at Del Mar in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies.
Blasi told Santa Anita publicity on Wednesday it was a long Tuesday trip to Santa Anita from where they had been stabled at Saratoga, which included a flight and multiple van rides, and, “We’ll get them into their routine tomorrow.”
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