Breeders’ Cup: Why Asmussen says Cogburn is unique talent

Louisville, Ky.

Steve Asmussen knows he has a special horse in Cogburn. One particular performance proved it to him.

“Nobody has ever seen a horse go 5 1/2 furlongs in under one minute,” the Hall of Fame trainer said this week at Churchill Downs. “That puts him in a room of one.”

That one line jumps off the page when looking at Cogburn’s past performances ahead of the five-furlong, $1 million Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Del Mar, where Asmussen will have five starters on next Saturday’s championship card. Two races back at Saratoga, the 5-year-old entire son of Not This Time did the 1,210-yard dash in a world-record 59.80 seconds to win the Grade 1 Jaipur Stakes.

“To this point they can’t go faster,” Asmussen said in an interview for Horse Racing Nation’s Ron Flatter Racing Pod. “You just need him to stand up and do his job, and we feel great about his chances.”

Cogburn already has shown he is no one-trick pony. When he won the six-furlong Kentucky Downs Turf Sprint (G2) on Sept. 7 in his most recent start, he extended his winning streak to three, all since he was paired with five-time Eclipse Award-winning jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. Even taking note of a mere, three-quarter-length loss finishing fifth in last year’s running of that race, Cogburn has won six of his last seven going back 1 1/2 years.

His world-record performance was graded with a 114 Beyer Speed Figure, according to Daily Racing Form, the best for any horse this year. He earned a 107 for the Kentucky Downs win, the same figure he got May 4 when he won the 5 1/2-furlong Turf Sprint (G2) on Derby day at Churchill Downs. In the turf division, Cogburn has three of the top six Beyers in 2024.

“He’s run some incredible races this year,” Asmussen said. “Obviously we’re extremely excited about how he’s coming into the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint.”

Cogburn got a lot of time off after he came up provocatively short in that exception of a loss last year at Kentucky Downs. He got another three-month break this summer, but not intentionally. A defense of last year’s victory in the 5 1/2-furlong Troy Stakes (G3) was rained off the Saratoga turf in August, and he was among eight horses who were scratched.

Whether or not the breaks were planned, Asmussen said they benefited the horse owned by Oklahoma lawyer Clark Brewster and longtime Texas horse farmers Bill and Corinne Heiligbrodt.

“He’s obviously faster as an older horse,” Asmussen said. “He was very impressive early, and he’s just gotten brilliant. Less racing, more spacing, more time, he’s really responded to that. I think that the success he’s had has also built a new level of confidence in him that he knows he’s the man.”

Longer spells between races are a common denominator for most of Asmussen’s Breeders’ Cup horses who have been handled at Del Mar this month by longtime assistant Scott Blasi. Gun Pilot and Skelly in the Sprint and Society in the Filly & Mare Sprint will have had at least seven weeks off before their starts next weekend. Zeitlos, who will go in the Filly & Mare Sprint four weeks after she won the Thoroughbred Club of America (G2) at Keeneland, is the exception.

“It’s the circumstances for each of these horses,” Asmussen said when asked if this was a specific strategy. “Benefitting them for trying to put them in position for championship honors. It’s great that they are Grade 1-winning horses, but championship honors is the next level for them and what we’re aiming at with all of them.”

Cogburn already is committed to retirement right after the Breeders’ Cup. He will stand at WinStar Farm in Kentucky next spring, and according to BloodHorse, he will be shuttled to Widden Stud in Australia during the southern breeding season. A 2.5 percent stallion share in him will be auctioned Wednesday at the inaugural Keeneland championship sale in the Del Mar paddock.

To finish with a 4-for-4 record in 2024, he will have to fend off rivals next Saturday led by Bradsell. The 4-year-old colt spent 11 months on Archie Watson’s bench in Great Britain before he produced three consecutive victories this summer including in the Nunthorpe (G1) and Flying Five (G1). If not for soft ground at ParisLongchamp three weeks ago, he might have done better than second in the Prix de l’Abbaye (G1).

“He’s just proven how good he is, and it wasn’t a one-off,” Bradsell’s jockey Hollie Doyle said after the Flying Five in Ireland. “We’ve run here twice before and haven’t had the luck of the draw, but he’s never been in better form. He’s improved with age and got stronger and quicker. ... These sprinters do improve with age, and he’s in a really good place mentally.”

According to the England bookmaking monitor Oddschecker, Cogburn was best-priced Saturday morning as the 7-4 favorite internationally to win the Turf Sprint. Bradsell was next at 7-2.

Asmussen does not shy away from knowing about the odds for any given races, but right now they are little more than a curiosity.

“You just concentrate on what you can,” Asmussen said. “I couldn’t be any more excited with how Cogburn is mentally, physically right now. We know who’s side we’re on. He races from gate to wire, and he’s world-record fast.”

The horse named for True Grit character Rooster Cogburn cost $150,000 at a Florida sale 3 1/2 years ago. With a 15: 9-2-0 record since, Cogburn has earned $2,392,630.

If were to punctuate his career with a Breeders’ Cup triumph, he could be in line to parlay that and his world record into an Eclipse Award as the top sprinter of 2024. Might Cogburn even get into the conversation for horse of the year?

“What kind of accolades people want to give him for that or whatever is completely out of our control,” Asmussen said. As a reminder, though, he flashed back to that sub-one-minute sprint. “Since we’ve seen a lot of horse races, and we’ve never seen anyone do it, that kind of separates him himself.”