Untapable, Tapiture ready to start training for 2015

Trainer Steve Asmussen has set up shop at Fair Grounds for the winter, started winning races in the past week, and now has his big guns on the way.

The two star Winchell Thoroughbreds homebreds, Untapable and Tapiture, were to ship from the Winchells’ Corinthia Farm in Kentucky to Fair Grounds on Friday, Asmussen said. On Monday, both horses will begin training for their 2015 campaigns.

Kentucky Oaks winner Untapable is the odds-on favorite to earn an Eclipse Award as the champion 3-year-old filly of 2014 after winning the Breeders’ Cup Distaff. Tapiture had a fine year in his own right, winning three of eight starts and finishing his season with second-place finishes to Bayern in the Pennsylvania Derby and to Goldencents in the BC Dirt Mile. Tapiture raced against the grain of the track in both of those starts and appeared to come back from a layoff between June 14 and Aug. 2 an improved horse.

Asmussen said no firm plans for early 2015 have been established for either horse, but there are broad goals for the season. “Obviously, we want to get Untapable back to the Breeders’ Cup to defend her title, and we want to win a Grade 1 with Tapiture,” he said.

Untapable got her 2014 campaign started at Fair Grounds, but there is not a single stakes race in her division – older fillies and mares at two turns on dirt – scheduled there this meet.