2021 Breeders' Cup: With six BC runners, Asmussen can add on to an already monstrous season
DEL MAR, Calif. – He’s always on the go, to the track to watch his horses train, to the airport to head off and see another of his strings, the phone ever present to check in with his team of assistants. Often, there’s not much time for reflection for Steve Asmussen. There’s another track to get to, another race to win.
But this past year has afforded him many opportunities to savor where he’s come from – most notably, the people who made him who he is – and how much he’s accomplished.
As he heads into the Breeders’ Cup this weekend at Del Mar, Asmussen already in 2021 has set the all-time record for career wins by a trainer, and he’s continuing to run up that scoreboard. Earlier this year, he won the Arkansas Derby with a colt co-owned by his parents, Keith and Marilyn. He leads all trainers this year in purse earnings. With two months to go before Auld Lang Syne is sung Asmusen has the very real chance of setting a single-season record.
And to top it off, one of the best horses he ever trained, 2017 Horse of the Year Gun Runner, has come out of the blocks as a white-hot freshman stallion, his 2-year-olds including Echo Zulu, whom Asmussen trains and is the morning-line favorite for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies on Friday.
“I’ve been unbelievably blessed in my life, and this year, the circumstances, with how things have happened, with Julie and the boys being at Saratoga, and winning with my parents, and my brother Cash, I just feel unbelievably blessed,” Asmussen, 55, said earlier this week. “Racing has been unbelievable to the Asmussen family.”
It was at Saratoga on Aug. 7 when Asmussen got career win number 9,446, passing the late Dale Baird to claim the top spot all-time among trainers. His wife, Julie, and sons Keith, Darren, and Eric were there. The colt who provided that record-setting win, Stellar Tap, graduated from the Asmussen Training Center in Laredo, Texas, where his parents and his brother – a champion rider in both the United States and France during his career – give young horses their early, important lessons before they head off to the racetrack.
“You don’t get to 9,446 in a day,” Asmussen said. “I’d imagined it for a time. The respect, the acknowledgement I got from so many people was heartwarming, and to have it happen at Saratoga, with plenty of meet left, I relished it.”
His parents couldn’t be there that day, but they were at Oaklawn on April 10 when Super Stock, whom they co-own, won the Arkansas Derby.
“What a neat accomplishment to do that with my parents,” Asmussen said. “It created an opportunity to reflect on how much ground we’ve covered, because so often you just put your head down and keep going. This is a reflection of the qualities they’ve shown me. Learn from your mistakes, try to correct them, move forward. To see the love and respect they got from that win, they deserve it.”
The early success of Gun Runner brings Asmussen great joy. He was incredibly fond of Gun Runner when he was racing, and Gun Runner so far has passed on his speed and talent to his offspring.
“It’s only the beginning!” Asmussen said, animatedly. “They’re fast, just like him. That horse, a lot of racing, a lot of travel, never needed excuses. He never backed up. He was the fastest he’d been when he was retired, and he accepted everything we asked of him.”
Gun Runner, second earlier in 2017 in the Dubai World Cup behind Arrogate, completed his career with a Breeders’ Cup Classic victory here at Del Mar, and followed that with a win in the Pegasus at Gulfstream Park. In between those races, he was sent to Kentucky so prospective breeders could view him at Three Chimneys Farm, where he now resides.
“To get up to that level, win the Breeders’ Cup Classic, with all the speed in that race, a chance to pay Arrogate back, then go to a stallion show, then go to the Pegasus and draw post 10 of 12, all that’s going on saddling, and you walk up to him, put your hand on his neck, and he’s as cool as the other side of the pillow,” Asmussen said. “He’s a horse who knew who he was. That is a special horse.
“And then he passes that on,” he said. “What’s that saying? You don’t get cats from dogs.”
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Gun Runner is one of seven Breeders’ Cup winners trained by Asmussen, who went into the Hall of Fame in 2016. This year, he has six entrants in five races. In addition to Echo Zulu on Friday, Asmussen on Saturday has Silver State and Snapper Sinclair in the Dirt Mile, Jackie’s Warrior in the Sprint, Clairiere in the Distaff, and Max Player in the Classic.
“Six excellent chances,” Asmussen said.
They have a chance to add to the 9,524 career wins Asmussen had as of Tuesday. They could significantly add to the $26,264,454 in purse earnings he has this year, which leads his brethren and puts him within distance of the record of $31,112,144 set by Chad Brown in 2019.
If Asmussen is atop the earnings list this year, it will mark the second straight year he’s done that, after finishing second in both 2018 and 2019. A blockbuster weekend could bring him his third Eclipse Award as champion trainer, having won it previously in 2008 and 2009.
He’s done a lot already this year. There may be much more to come.