Epicenter to stand at Coolmore's Ashford Stud

Grade 1 winner Epicenter, who sustained a career-ending injury in the Breeders' Cup Classic last month, will begin a stallion career at Coolmore's Ashford Stud in Versailles, Ky., that operation announced Sunday.

Epicenter, by the Giant's Causeway horse Not This Time, will stand for a fee of $45,000.

“He was a brilliant horse whose best racing days were still in front of him,” owner Ron Winchell said in a Coolmore release. “Bred on the reverse of Gun Runner’s Candy Ride-Giant’s Causeway cross, he’s a hugely exciting stallion prospect.”

Epicenter, trained by Steve Asmussen, came to prominence with a productive 2021-22 winter meeting at the Fair Grounds. After winning the Gun Runner Stakes late last year and finishing second in the Grade 3 Lecomte Stakes, he won the Risen Star Stakes and Louisiana Derby, both Grade 2 events. He finished second in both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes. He annexed both the Grade 2 Jim Dandy Stakes and Grade 1 Travers Stakes, the latter by 5 1/4 lengths, during the summer meet at Saratoga to move to the head of the 3-year-old class.

In the Breeders' Cup Classic on Nov. 5 at Keeneland, Epicenter was pulled up midway down the backstretch by jockey Joel Rosario, having sustained a lateral condylar fracture to his right foreleg. He underwent successful surgery the following morning and reports have been favorable throughout his recovery process.

The breeding season begins in mid-February.

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