LOUISVILLE — One of them showed brilliance right away, the other needed six races to break his maiden and constantly tested the faith of his connections. But as trainer Steve Asmussen’s two entries prepared for the Kentucky Derby with final half-mile workouts Monday, it seemed reasonable to conclude that nobody will be holding a stronger hand Saturday than the newest member of horse racing’s Hall of Fame.
Asmussen, who has won 17 training titles at Churchill Downs but never the track’s crown jewel race, is in the enviable position this week of saddling two regally bred contenders, both coming off victories in prestigious prep races. Based on the way Gun Runner and Creator have looked on the track, it would be a mild surprise if Asmussen didn’t figure into the finish one way or another.
“Very pleased with their attitude and their works,” Asmussen said. “I feel very comfortable they’re going to handle the surface and the surroundings. You worry about other things, but you can check that off as not an excuse and try to move forward.”
Though Asmussen concedes that unbeaten Nyquist is the race’s deserving favorite, it would be hard to find fault with the way either of his horses is coming into the race, even if their paths to get here were wildly different.
While Gun Runner has been considered a Derby contender since last fall and lived up to the hype this spring in Louisiana, Creator was an underachiever until he arrived in Arkansas and began to shed the immaturity that held him back as a 2-year-old.
Creator was purchased as a yearling for $440,000 by WinStar Farm, and there were high hopes attached from the beginning to the big, good-looking gray son of America’s leading sire, Tapit. But like many offspring of Tapit, the horse was so high-strung his connections wanted to bring him along slowly and look for easier races in the Midwest to build his confidence rather than jump into the rich stakes races at Saratoga Race Course in New York. Asmussen even put him in two maiden races on the grass so the horse wouldn’t get discouraged by dirt getting kicked in his face.
“We thought he was a Derby-type horse,” WinStar President and CEO Elliott Walden said. “Steve let him come into his own.”
The only problem was, Creator couldn’t win. After five starts and four second-place finishes — including a maiden race at the Fair Grounds in February against less-than-stellar competition — Creator gave nothing to indicate he was on track for the Kentucky Derby.
“He’s always had a lot of talent,” Asmussen said. “He’s a great physical (specimen), tremendous pedigree. It’s been in him. He just lacked focus in his races. Watching him, it was a bit frustrating. You felt like he should have won several of the races you were watching, but he’d just take mental lapses and not finish up with the effort you knew he was capable of.”
Everything changed, however, when he got to Oaklawn Park. Creator easily broke his maiden Feb. 27, ran a fast-closing third despite a difficult trip in the Rebel Stakes and came from last place to win the Grade I Arkansas Derby with a bold move on the far turn and a strong finishing kick.
Though he has a running style that could make it difficult to navigate traffic in a 20-horse field, Creator also stands as the likely benefactor if there’s a fast pace as opposed to his early races in which he was trying to close into slow fractions.
“It’s nice he got back on track at Oaklawn,” Walden said. “The truer run races, the faster run races, were definitely to his liking. You never know, but the way he’s doing, his energy level is so high.”
Gun Runner, who breezed a half-mile in an easy 50.40 seconds Monday, will attempt to win the Kentucky Derby off a six-week break between races after romping in the Grade II Louisiana Derby on March 26. Only one other horse in the last 50 years — Animal Kingdom in 2011 — has won with that much time between starts.
But preparing for Kentucky with two races in New Orleans is the path Asmussen preferred, with the idea of having a fresh horse not just for the Triple Crown but also for the rest of the year. Gun Runner won his first two starts last fall and finished a good fourth in the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes, one of the top November races for 2-year-olds.
“He identified himself as a horse that could be a serious 3-year-old, and obviously we were hoping (he could contend) in Triple Crown type races,” Asmussen said. “With the brilliance he showed from Day 1 and just pedigree-wise, we felt he was consistently going to get better with time and age. It went exactly how we’d hoped. We feel good about where we’re at today. The two races, the timing, the spacing and having just one move for him from New Orleans to here has been seamless and allowed him to continue to develop.”
With two Derby contenders plus as many as four starters in the Kentucky Oaks — including Fantasy Stakes winner Terra Promessa — this could be the biggest weekend of Asmussen’s career, which includes two wins in the Preakness Stakes and the 2007 Breeders’ Cup Classic with Curlin.
A win in either classic race would further validate his Hall of Fame entry, which became official last week.
“I’m very grateful for the opportunity with horses like Gun Runner and Creator,” he said. “It just doesn’t get any better than how they’re bred and how they look and who they are. Going in with those expectations, you realize how fortunate you are.”
