Saratoga 2022: Travers is now-or-never time for Epicenter
Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen can talk all he wants about the ruinous Kentucky Derby pace that contributed to Epicenter’s inability to fend off 80-1 Rich Strike. He can assert that his colt did not handle the two-week turnaround to the Preakness as well as he thought he had and was therefore second best to a much fresher Early Voting.
Yet even Asmussen is tired of talking that talk as he looks forward to the monumental opportunity that awaits Winchell Thoroughbreds’ Epicenter in the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers on Saturday at Saratoga Race Course.
“Enough with the excuses. It’s time to win one of these things,” he said. “We’re proud of the horse, but you want to win. That’s what you’re in it for.”
The bay son of Not This Time boasts an impressive resume, with five victories and three runner-up efforts in nine lifetime starts for earnings of $2,270,639. His only off-the-board finish occurred when he failed to hold an early lead and weakened to be sixth in his debut last Sept. 18 at Churchill Downs.
But he has been second as often as he has won through six starts this year. His successes in the Risen Star Stakes (G2), Louisiana Derby (G2) and Jim Dandy (G2) surely are not enough to sway voters when it comes time to decide the Eclipse Award for leading 3-year-old.
Winning is winning. To be second is to be forgotten. Realistically, it is now or never for 7-5 favorite Epicenter in the eight-horse Travers. “I think because of the way the year has unfolded that we need to win it the most,” Asmussen said.
Given that reality, Asmussen chose the $600,000 Jim Dandy on June 30 at Saratoga rather than the $1 million Haskell (G1) a week earlier at Monmouth Park even though the Haskell winner, Travers rival and 7-2 second choice Cyberknife, earned a fees-paid berth in the $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic.
“We wanted to run him in the Jim Dandy because of what’s on the line in the Travers,” said Asmussen. “We wanted to see him on the surface, any adjustments we had to make. It went as well as we could have hoped. The style in which he won, I thought we had a lot of horse coming out of it.”
Regular rider Joel Rosario allowed Epicenter to find a comfortable rhythm even though that meant settling into last in the compact four-horse field behind pace-setting Early Voting. When Rosario asked his mount, he responded with a wide but overpowering move to best Zandon, another Travers starter, by 1 1/2 lengths.
Asmussen thinks Epicenter showed maturity in the Jim Dandy that he had not seen before. “He seemed considerably more relaxed during the middle of the race,” he said. The youngster needed only mild hand urging from Rosario to take command at the eighth pole before he was allowed to coast home with an eye toward conserving as much as possible for the Travers.
“The Jim Dandy felt great to win,” Asmussen said, “but the Travers is the goal.”
Asmussen, North America’s all-time leading trainer in victories, has yet to win the mid-summer derby with seven previous starters. Midnight Bourbon came in second last year. Gun Runner took third in 2016 before blossoming into the Horse of the Year the following season. Winchell Thoroughbreds and Rosario also seek a Travers breakthrough.
Epicenter was a $260,000 purchase for Joan Winchell and her son, Ron, at Keeneland’s September Yearling Sale. He returned to the work tab on Aug. 8 after the Jim Dandy. He has drilled three times ahead of the Travers, beginning with a pair of five-furlong moves and concluding with four furlongs in 50.03 seconds on Aug. 22.
Asmussen exudes optimism as the pivotal 1 1/4-mile contest approaches.
“I will say that I felt the exact same way before the Derby and the Preakness, that we were leading the right horse over there,” he said. “Nothing but respect for a very talented group of 3-year-olds, but we’re very fortunate to have Epicenter.”