Gun Runner looks to cap storied career with Pegasus payday

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Gun Runner already has won 11 times in 18 starts, earned just shy of $9 million, and received deserved acclaim as having the best body of work in the country in 2017. There’s one final dance before he heads off to stud, on Saturday in the second running of the $16 million Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park, and as good as Gun Runner has been throughout his career, trainer Steve Asmussen wants him to leave on top.

“I very much want Gun Runner to go out the way he deserves, on top, the way he’s been heralded since the Breeders’ Cup Classic,” Asmussen said this week at Gulfstream Park.

Gun Runner is the 4-5 favorite on the morning line of Gulfstream Park’s Jay Stone, but the draw did Gun Runner no favors, as he is stuck in post 10 in the 12-horse field, with an abrupt run to the first turn going once around this nine-furlong oval. A little more than two months ago, though, he beat most of his main challengers – Collected, West Coast, and Gunnevera – in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, which secured Horse of the Year for Gun Runner. It was the best race of his career. A repeat of that, and he wins.

“His Breeders’ Cup Classic, the way the track was playing,” Asmussen said, referring to a Del Mar surface that seemed to favor runners who were off the rail, “the circumstances it brought out, the way he stepped up, I couldn’t have been prouder.”

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Asmussen and his employees, including key assistant Scott Blasi, are going to be sorry to see Gun Runner leave; he begins stud duty next month at the farm of his co-owner, Three Chimneys, in Kentucky. Gun Runner has been in their care every day for more than 2 1/2 years and has developed from a spunky colt who finished third in the 2016 Kentucky Derby into the best dirt horse in the world. That’s why this race is so important to them, more so than the prize money. It’s almost time to say goodbye.

“It’s weird about him leaving,” said Asmussen, who compared it to sending his first-born son, Keith, off to college last fall. “You go from the illusion of having control to having none.”

Gun Runner has several worthy challengers, none more so than West Coast. Although he finished third in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, behind Collected, he progressed throughout the year and has grown into an imposing 4-year-old who figures to be one of the leading candidates for Horse of the Year in 2018. He starts from post 2. Trainer Bob Baffert wants jockey Javier Castellano to “put him in the race.”

“He can’t be far back,” Baffert said. “He has a lot of natural speed. You’ve got to let him break. Once he gets his feet under him the first part, he’s all right.”

Baffert also trains Collected, who came closest to Gun Runner in the Breeders’ Cup Classic when finishing second. He is coming off a poor try in the San Antonio Stakes at Santa Anita, for which jockey Mike Smith took the blame.

“I thought I’d sit off the pace. I thought there would be more pace than developed,” Smith said. “When I left the gate, I got real still, and he relaxed so quick. Instead of going 22, 46, they went 24, 49. I was at the mercy of the pace at that point. It was my fault.

“I’m sure I’m going to ride him a lot different than the other day.”

Sharp Azteca, the Cigar Mile winner, will stretch out to 1 1/8 miles for the first time. He has won three of his last four starts.

“I’m very confident he can do it because of the way he gallops out in his works,” said trainer Jorge Navarro, who also sends out War Story. “He’s a very talented horse. I like that people see that now.”

Gunnevera, based in south Florida, returns to the track over which he has finished in the money in 6 of 7 starts, including a victory last year in the Fountain of Youth. His trainer, Antonio Sano, is hoping the likes of Collected, Gun Runner, and Sharp Azteca set a quick pace, which would help his late-runner.

“It’s a very strong race. Lot of speed, good for me,” Sano said at his barn Thursday.

Toast of New York invades from Britain, where he recently won on an all-weather surface when racing for the first time in three years. The last time he raced on dirt, he lost by a nose in the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita, splitting Bayern and California Chrome.

Seeking the Soul comes off a victory in the Grade 1 Clark at Churchill Downs. Giant Expectations was the upset winner of the San Antonio, beating Collected. Fear the Cowboy is 4 for 6 at Gulfstream but never has faced horses of this quality. Singing Bullet has won once in his last five starts, all in allowance company.

“If they run true to form, no one’s going to beat Gun Runner,” said Dale Romans, who trains Singing Bullet. “But it’s a lot of money, and horses don’t always run to form.”

Stellar Wind, the lone female in the race, is seeking to rebound from a dreadful effort in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, which ended a three-race winning streak. Since then, she has been sold and is now trained by Chad Brown. This is her final start before being bred.

Because she is a female facing males, Stellar Wind carries 121 pounds, while everyone else carries 124. The race conditions allowed for a seven-pound weight break for any horse who did not use Lasix, but all runners are using Lasix.

In addition to the 12 horses in the main body of the race, there are two also-eligibles – Giuseppe the Great and Game Over – in case of late scratches.

The Pegasus is preceded by seven stakes, four of them graded, and the terrific 12-race card also includes maiden races for late-developing prospects for the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks. First post is 11:30 a.m. Eastern, with admission gates opening at 9.

The Pegasus is the day’s final race. It will be televised live by NBC from 4:30 to 6 p.m.