Magnitude latest Horse of the Year candidate for Asmussen
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Three people still active in the practice of training Thoroughbred racehorses have housed a Horse of the Year in their barn four times, but if the 2026 season ended today, Steve Asmussen would become the only one with five.
Half this racing season remains, but Magnitude comes into July as the leading candidate for Horse of the Year after winning the Grade 1, $2 million Stephen Foster Stakes here on Saturday. The Foster followed victory in the $12 million Dubai World Cup on March 28, when Magnitude defeated the 2025 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner and two-time winner of the $20 million Saudi Cup, Forever Young.
In the Foster, he had far too much for Sovereignty, Horse of the Year as a 3-year-old last season, but 0-2 so far this year.
Bill Mott – who trains Sovereignty - and Bob Baffert are the other two active trainers who have trained a Horse of the Year four times.
Asmussen’s four to date: Curlin twice, as a 3-year-old in 2007 and a 4-year-old the next year, Rachel Alexandra as a 3-year-old filly of 2009, and Gun Runner as a 4-year-old in 2017.
Asmussen has Magnitude following precisely the same path he took with Gun Runner. Both horses won the Clark at Churchill in November of their 3-year-old season, and both prepped for Dubai by capturing the Razorback Handicap at Oaklawn. Gun Runner returned from an excellent World Cup second-place finish behind Arrogate to win the Foster, then went to Saratoga and landed the Whitney in August and the Woodward in September.
Magnitude, Asmussen said Sunday afternoon, took his Saturday race very well and boards a horse trailer Monday morning that will ferry him to Saratoga. The Whitney on Aug. 8 comes next, all being well.
“We want to see all the same things: Want travel to go well, want his energy to be the same, and expect the same confidence from him,” Asmussen said.
Asmussen would commit to no races beyond the Whitney. “Let’s get him to Saratoga first.”
The Woodward doesn’t exist this year. The Jockey Club Gold Cup comes up Sept. 18 at Belmont Park.
The 4-year-old filly Nitrogen, who got a 113 Beyer romping in the Ogden Phipps on June 5, also has the Whitney as a target. Jose Ortiz has been the regular rider of Nitrogen and Magnitude.
Forever Young’s connections intend to send him from Japan for the Jockey Club Gold Cup.
Magnitude broke through his starting stall before the Foster and had to be led back around the starting gate and reloaded. No worries. He got away cleanly and by the first turn had taken command of the race while setting a solid, unpressured pace. Magnitude held off a closing Baeza to win by 1 1/4 lengths, ran 1 1/8 miles over a sloppy, sealed track in 1:50.44, and earned a career-best 114 Beyer Speed Figure.
Magnitude is about $218,000 short of hitting $10 million in earnings, and if he crosses that threshold it will mark the fourth eight-figure earner Asmussen has trained: Gun Runner, Midnight Bisou, and Curlin all got there.
Asmussen seemed especially animated after the Foster.
“He was third choice on the morning line off winning the Dubai World Cup. It’s validation of who we thought he was,” Asmussen said. “He was very proud of himself this morning – and I think that’s really what’s came together for him, the understanding of what he’s doing and the acceptance of, ‘I can do this.’”
“Disappointing” Sovereignty to Whitney; Immersive to Personal Ensign
The betting market expected more of Horse of the Year Sovereignty in the Stephen Foster, in which Sovereignty went off the 4-5 favorite. So did anyone who thought this colt had superstar potential. And, frankly, so did his connections.
“Disappointing,” said Michael Banahan, director of bloodstock for GodolphinUSA. “We thought he’d be able to run a big race. He just seemed a little flat when the time for the real running came. Not too sure why.”
Sovereignty, winner of the Kentucky Derby, Belmont, and Travers last year, has made only two starts since the Aug. 23 Travers and has lost them both. There was nothing wrong with his runner-up finish April 18 in the Oaklawn Handicap, Sovereignty coming off an eight-month layoff and, for the first time in his career, setting the pace. Banahan expected Sovereignty to improve in the Foster, as did trainer Bill Mott.
“It was a different kind of muddy track than he ran on last year” winning the Kentucky Derby, Banahan said. “But no real excuse. He seemed in good shape coming into the race. We were very hopeful of a big run.”
Mott left early Sunday for New York, but said his Churchill assistant, Kenny McCarthy, told him Sovereignty looked good. Sovereignty ships back to Saratoga, from whence he came for the Foster, on Monday.
All being well, the Whitney and a rematch with Magnitude looms, Mott said, but everyone still is looking for proof Sovereignty’s the same horse this year as last. The fever that took him out of the Breeders’ Cup Classic persisted and led to a longer-than-intended winter break.
“He got sick and kept on having on-and-off temperatures,” Banahan said.
Sovereignty’s healthy now – he’s just not performing to lofty expectations.
Before Sovereignty’s race, Banahan watched another Godolphin homebred, Immersive, make good on the decision to bring her back for a 4-year-old campaign when she won the Grade 2 Fleur de Lis, a “Win and You’re In” race for the Breeders’ Cup Distaff.
Champion 2-year-old filly of 2024, when she capped a three-Grade 1 campaign winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, Immersive had physical problems early and late during her 3-year-old campaign, which included only three starts. She’s already made three this year and probably, Banahan said, goes straight to the Grade 1 Personal Ensign on Aug. 24 at Saratoga.
Lagynos to Fourstardave; Flightline colt’s debut delayed
One race before he sent Magnitude out to win his fourth straight in the Grade 1 Foster here Saturday, Steve Asmussen saddled Lagynos to a three-quarter-length victory in the Grade 2 Wise Dan, the horse’s fifth win in a row.
Lagynos, a 5-year-old by Kantharos, came into this season with five wins from his first 22 races. Second in the Colonel Bradley at Fair Grounds making his 2026 debut in January, Lagynos since has won the Fair Grounds, the Muniz Memorial, the Opening Verse, the Arlington, and the Wise Dan.
Lagynos has matured and grown more relaxed during his races. When Jose Ortiz, aboard for all five wins, asks Lagynos to finish, he kicks home stronger than in earlier days.
“His comfort level of letting them do something in front of him is different now,” Asmussen said.
Seventh in the race last summer at Saratoga, Lagynos tries again in the Grade 1 Fourstardave on Aug. 8.
The unraced 2-year-old Powerline, a well-regarded Flightline colt purchased at auction last summer for $1.8 million, also ships to Saratoga on June 29 after Asmussen, owing to a sloppy, sealed surface, scratched him from his intended debut here Saturday.
“Get him to Saratoga, and we’ll regroup with him,” Asmussen said.
Baeza to Whitney
Baeza came out of his closing second-place Stephen Foster finish in good order, ships to Saratoga on Monday, and, like his stablemate Sovereignty, has the Whitney as a target, trainer Bill Mott said.
Baeza, as he did in the Alysheba here last month, broke poorly in the Foster.
“He was standing straight, but he was just slow out of there,” Mott said.
Mott, obviously, has done plenty of gate work with Baeza, and Baeza breaks better in morning training than in afternoon racing.
“There’s only so much you can do,” Mott said.
Alpyland to Secretariat
A well-known fact: Trainer Mark Casse likes to run his horses. He runs the good ones more frequently than most trainers and makes no apologies for it.
“I actually think when you can get these horses running in a steady deal, it keeps them sounder,” Casse said. “You don’t have to do as much in between the races.”
Just look at the 3-year-old gelding Alpyland. He debuted last June 29 and never has had a break from racing, yet in the 11th start of this form cycle, Alpyland was an easy winner of the American Derby here Saturday. Alpyland has captured three of his last four and on May 29 routed his rivals in the Penn Mile.
“He is zeroed in right now. I watched him come to the top of the lane yesterday with his ears pricked. That horse has gotten good,” Casse said.
No reason for a break now. Alpyland, all being well, goes to the $500,000 Secretariat on Aug. 1 at Colonial Downs.
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