2021 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies: Echo Zulu stays undefeated while winning third straight Grade 1

DEL MAR, Calif. – Like father, like daughter.

Echo Zulu, whose sire, Gun Runner, clinched Horse of the Year when winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic four years ago at Del Mar, secured her own title on Friday with a dominating victory in the $1,760,000 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies.

Echo Zulu ($3.60), the favorite, rocketed to the lead in the opening strides and never looked back, pulling clear down the lane for a 5 1/4-length victory to complete a perfect season with four wins, three in Grade 1 races. She will be the champion 2-year-old filly.

Juju’s Map outdueled Tarabi by a half-length for second. Hidden Connection, Sequist, and Desert Dawn completed the field, in that order.

Echo Zulu set fractions of 23.42 seconds for the opening quarter, 47.01 seconds for the half, 1:10.96 for six furlongs, and 1:35.64 for one mile before completing 1 1/16 miles on the fast main track in 1:42.24. The clocking was .26 second faster than the Juvenile two races later and earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 94.

Echo Zulu is trained by Steve Asmussen, who also trained Gun Runner, and she is co-owned by Ron Winchell, who raced Gun Runner. Echo Zulu is co-owned by the L and N Racing of Lee Levinson, his sons Andy and Michael, and Don Nelson.

“Very special filly. She means so much to us, and the fact she is the first crop of Gun Runner, everything that he did for us,” Asmussen said. “Surreal to be back here at Del Mar for the second Breeders’ Cup when his crowning moment was the Breeders’ Cup here in 2017.

“She’s just done everything right from the first time, and for her to win in such an authoritative fashion in such an excellent time stamps her as a true champion.”

Echo Zulu won her debut at Saratoga, then won the seven-furlong Spinaway there before the one-mile Frizette at Belmont. She came west shortly after that race and trained at Santa Anita and then Del Mar for nearly a month with Asmussen’s top assistant, Scott Blasi, relocating for the duration.

Asmussen said that Echo Zulu has similar qualities to Gun Runner in that she can maintain a high cruising speed that takes a toll on rivals.

“What a fluid mover she is, and the middle fractions – where Gun Runner just seemed to move so effortlessly and horses didn’t stay at the same rate he did – that’s how she seems to be in her races,” Asmussen said. “I think that we’ve noticed it more and more with the races that stretched out, the middle of the race in the Frizette and the middle of the race here, you could visually see she’s doing it like she just started and they’re starting to get pressure to maintain the same pace she has.”

Ricardo Santana Jr. had ridden Echo Zulu in her first three starts, but Asmussen made an 11th-hour switch to Joel Rosario on Monday, when Rosario’s scheduled mount, Ain’t Easy, was not entered after suffering a minor injury. Rosario, a dominant rider in Southern California a decade ago before relocating, said Echo Zulu “doesn’t look like she’s going as fast as she is.”

“Her ears are going back and forth,” he said, referring to a sign that a horse is not under duress.

Both Juju’s Map and Tarabi were in closest attendance to Echo Zulu around the first turn and down the backstretch, but Echo Zulu began to widen on them as they rounded the far turn. It was a spirited battle for second, with Juju’s Map getting the best of it.

“The winner was the best today,” said Florent Geroux, who rode Juju’s Map and was the regular rider of Gun Runner.

Javier Castellano, who rode Tarabi, said his filly “fought bravely.”

“Only her third race, first time two turns,” Castellano said.

Echo Zulu, who is out of the Menifee mare Letgomyecho, was purchased as a yearling for $300,000. She earned $1,040,000 on Friday and has career earnings just shy of $1.5 million.

Echo Zulu will get some time off now and come back next year at age 3, with a race like the Kentucky Oaks – which Asmussen has won twice – an obvious target.

“I think we’ve had other fillies that became champions. This filly started out that way,” Asmussen said. “And where it ends up, I can’t imagine her getting better, we’re just trying to maintain the same.

“But for us to dream that there’s a possibility she will move forward, we’ve been very fortunate, a couple of Oaks winners that were very good fillies, but they weren’t like this at this stage. They developed into it. This filly has started here.”