Epicenter going 'right way' heading into Kentucky Derby
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Seems like all you hear about Kentucky Derby-wise a week out from the race is Zandon this, Zandon that. Okay, fair enough. Zandon won the Blue Grass Stakes with aplomb and has since trained with verve, culminating in an excellent Friday workout, his final Derby breeze.
This might be a good time to page back through our information-buzzing brains and try to recall a colt named Epicenter. Remember him?
Until Zandon’s Blue Grass, Epicenter was the presumed Derby favorite. Since a modest career debut here last September, Epicenter has four wins and a nose defeat in the Lecomte Stakes entirely predicated upon pace. Epicenter won the Gun Runner on Dec. 26, cruised to an easy win in the Risen Star on Feb. 19 (beating Zandon by more than three lengths), and won the Louisiana Derby on March 26 by 2 1/2 lengths, geared down.
Of course, human memory has a built-in recency bias, and in Derby prep season, March 26 feels like a long time ago. Since Epicenter’s last start, the Florida Derby, the Arkansas Derby, the Santa Anita Derby, and the Blue Grass all have been run. And while Zandon was wowing work-watchers Friday, Epicenter galloped around the Churchill oval at a relative snail’s pace. Same thing Saturday, when Epicenter galloped 1 1/2 miles starting at the eighth pole and pulling up at the five-eighths. The gallop came after Epicenter schooled in the paddock, came back onto the track, backtracked to the quarter pole and stood for a minute before going about his exercise.
“We did that with him in New Orleans, go to the head of the stretch and turn around,” said Scott Blasi, assistant to trainer Steve Asmussen and the man astride the pony accompanying Epicenter when he goes out to train. “He kind of likes to have a little look around, and that’s where the gate sits. You go all the way back there to break for the Kentucky Derby.”
Blasi said that with a little glint in his eye. Team Epicenter is very much looking forward to May 7. As for the slow-paced gallops, those are strictly by design, especially with Epicenter set to have his final Derby work Sunday morning.
“That’s a pretty normal day-before-he-works gallop. We don’t let him go faster. I think he’s doing plenty right now,” Blasi said.
Blasi has been around Epicenter nearly every day through the last five months. Lucky guy. This horse is gorgeous. He’s immense for his age, filled out like a 4-year-old with a robust shoulder and boulders for buttocks, and Epicenter, while he can be aggressive, has a brain. His head is large, stately, classic; he has a kind, beautiful eye. Respectfully, he nuzzled Blasi’s hand for carrot chunks as the Asmussen barn was winding down morning training.
“I just think physically, the horse we saddled in the Gun Runner in December to who we put the tack on in March, he’s just changed so much,” Blasi said. “You have no way of knowing that horses are going to go that way. Some horses grow, some don’t. He’s gone the right way, and it’s been fun to watch. It doesn’t happen like this that often. The nice thing about Epi is that physically he seems mature enough to be there. He knows what to do.”
Hear that, Zandon?