Epicenter Off to Ashford After Mending at Shantera Farm

Winchell Thoroughbreds' Epicenter  , on the mend from an injury to his right foreleg sustained in the Nov. 5 Breeders' Cup Classic (G1), left Shantera Farm near Versailles, Ky., Jan. 13 for Coolmore's Ashford Stud, where he will begin stud duty for the 2023 season.

The now 4-year-old Not This Time   colt, a finalist for champion 3-year-old male of 2022, was pulled up in the Breeders' Cup Classic at Keeneland by jockey Joel Rosario and later transported to Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital, where he underwent surgery the following day for a condylar fracture, an injury to the cannon bone above the fetlock that ended his racing career.

Winchell Thoroughbreds racing manager David Fiske tweeted a video Friday of Epicenter being loaded into a horse van for transit to Ashford.

#EPICENTER is off to his new career @coolmoreamerica.
Big thank you to @rebeccatbrace @JRosarioJockey Dr. Bramlage and the Lexington Metro PD for all contributing to making this moment possible pic.twitter.com/2vUABAMupq

— DJFiske (@DJFiske) January 13, 2023

"He looks fantastic, given everything he's been through," Fiske told BloodHorse later Friday afternoon. "Hopefully he excels in his new career."

Fiske thanked Becky Maker of Shantera Farm, Rosario, surgeon Dr. Larry Bramlage, and the Lexington Metro Police Department for the roles they played in caring for Epicenter after he was injured. Lexington PD provided an escort for the equine ambulance that transported the colt from Keeneland to Rood & Riddle.

"Like everything else in horse racing, it's a team effort, and Dr. Bramlage and the folks over at Rood & Riddle were great, and he's been living at Becky Maker's for the last two months over on Shannon Run Road and she did a fantastic job with him," Fiske said.

"When you look at the X-rays, and you have to think that if Joel hadn't recognized the problem and gotten him pulled up as quickly as he did, it could have turned into a compound fracture, and that's never good," he added.

Epicenter's recovery has not been without complications. Fiske said the original screws that were inserted during the first surgery broke, and the colt had to have a second surgery in December.

"Dr. Bramlage said, 'I've done 500 of these and never had a broken screw,'" he said. "It was right around the first of December; he had just started walking and I guess something shifted, and those screws just broke.

"After his second surgery, it had been on the calendar for him to be re-assessed and X-rayed again, and if everything was going good, for him to head over to Ashford. He got the green light from Dr. Bramlage earlier in the week. He'd already been walking twice a day and he can walk at Ashford just as well as he can walk at Becky's. He was starting to get to be a little bit of a handful."

Fiske later provided a follow-up tweet showing a picture of Epicenter alongside 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify   at Ashford Stud. Epicenter's stall is across from that of 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah  .

"He's in the big boy barn," Fiske remarked. "I think he was very happy to get out of his stall at Becky's. He'd been walking twice a day but I think when the van backed up, he thought, 'I don't care where it's going, I'm getting on it.' I think he'd had enough of that rehab stuff."

Bred in Kentucky by Westwind Farms out of the Candy Ride   mare Silent Candy , Epicenter was a $260,000 purchase by Winchell Thoroughbreds from the Bettersworth Westwind Farms consignment to the 2020 Keeneland September Yearling Sale.

Winner of the 2022 Travers Stakes (G1) and runner-up in both the Kentucky Derby (G1) and Preakness Stakes (G1), he compiled a 6-3-0 record in 11 starts for Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen, making $2,940,639. 

Fiske said the bay colt resonated with fans in part because of "the regularity with which he ran." After a sixth upon debut in September of 2021 at Churchill Downs, Epicenter returned in November with a maiden win, then impressed in December with a 6 1/2-length romp in the Gun Runner Stakes at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots. Second by a head to Call Me Midnight  in the Lecomte Stakes (G3) in January 2022, he returned with back-to-back victories in the Risen Star Stakes (G2) and Louisiana Derby (G2). 

Favored to win the Kentucky Derby, he was caught in the final strides by longshot Rich Strike , who rallied to deny him by three-quarters of a length.

"Getting beat the way he did in the Derby, I think, made him almost an immediate celebrity," Fiske said. "As harsh as the loss was, it was the fastest opening quarter and half in Derby history, and an 80-1 horse beat him in the shadow of the wire. There's a lot of drama there. And people recognized early on that he was probably the best 3-year-old of his crop."

Fiske noted Epicenter has received a tremendous reception from breeders, noting, "He's basically booked full already."

He said he is finalizing the list of mares from the Winchell broodmare band that will be sent to the colt. One under consideration is Untapable , the champion 3-year-old filly of 2014. 

"Her past two foals are by Gun Runner  , so maybe we'll mix it up a little bit," he said.

Charlie O'Connor, director of sales for Coolmore America, welcomed the colt whose sire is by the late Coolmore legend Giant's Causeway.

"We are very excited to have Epicenter joining the roster at Ashford," he told BloodHorse. "He was an immensely talented racehorse by Giant's Causeway's best sire son, Not This Time, and he is incredibly good-looking. We are thrilled at the caliber of mares that breeders and the Winchells are supporting him with."