What's left for Jackie's Warrior? A Breeders' Cup win, says Asmussen

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - When a horse has won 11 graded stakes, five Grade 1s including a record one Grade 1 at Saratoga for three consecutive years, there is little left to accomplish. When it comes to Jackie’s Warrior, however, trainer Steve Asmussen still has one more for goal for the freakishly fast 4-year-old colt.

Win a Breeders’ Cup race.

Jackie’s Warrior has lost only four times in 16 career starts, but two came in the Breeders’ Cup. At 2, he finished fourth in the Juvenile, a two-turn, 1 1/16-mile race. At 3, he finished sixth in the Sprint, a race from which he emerged with a knee chip.

It's obvious Jackie’s Warrior has returned from that issue better than ever as he recorded his fourth win in as many starts this year with a devastatingly easy two-length victory in Saturday’s Grade 1, $350,000 Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap. Despite jockey Joel Rosario never moving a muscle on him, Jackie’s Warrior ran six furlongs in 1:09.74 and earned a 105 Beyer Speed Figure for the performance, barely more than a public workout.

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“He was very satisfied with himself and was very happy this morning,” Asmussen said.

Jackie’s Warrior added the Vanderbilt to previous Grade 1 wins at Saratoga in the 2021 H. Allen Jerkens and 2020 Hopeful. No other horse has won Grade 1s in three successive years here.

“It felt to me there was a lot on the line yesterday for Jackie being the first horse to win a Grade 1 three straight years and what that will mean for him going forward legacy-wise, which is what we’re working on now for him,” said Asmussen, who trains Jackie’s Warrior for Kirk and Judy Robison.

Jackie’s Warrior has two starts remaining before he retires to Spendthrift Farm next year. The first is the Grade 1 Forego here on Aug. 27, when he will try to win a fourth Grade 1 and sixth graded stakes overall at Saratoga - both believed to records. Then there is the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Keeneland on Nov. 5. It was in 2020, in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, where Jackie’s Warrior finished fourth behind Essential Quality in the Juvenile.

“Being 0 for 2 in the Breeders’ Cup, we have obstacles in the fact he did not run well at Keeneland as a 2-year-old,” Asmussen said.

But that was at a distance that was not his best. As a sprinter, there’s currently nobody better.