Bullet Work for Gun Runner at Oaklawn Park

Finally free of Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots, Gun Runner had his first breeze at Oaklawn Park Feb. 13 in preparation for the $500,000 Razorback Handicap (G3).

Working five furlongs over the fast main track Monday, the 4-year-old was timed in :59 4/5, earning a bullet as the fastest time among 10 working that distance.

The Razorback, at 1 1/16 miles on the Feb. 20 Presidents Day card at the Hot Springs, Ark., oval, will be the first start for Gun Runner since the Candy Ride   colt scored a game victory over older horses in the Clark Handicap (G1) at Churchill Downs in late November to cap a 3-year-old campaign in which he won or placed in eight of nine starts and earned more than $1.9 million.

Trained by Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen for Winchell Thoroughbreds and Three Chimneys Farm, Gun Runner missed a hoped for engagement in the $12 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes (G1) at Gulfstream Park because an outbreak of equine herpesvirus type-1 at Fair Grounds that resulted in horses not being able to leave or enter the track while a quarantine was in effect. Other states and tracks also placed restrictions on horses that had been in Louisiana during the period.

"The background changes but he looks the same," Winchell Thoroughbreds racing manager David Fiske said after watching the Feb. 13 work video. "He's pretty remarkable. He just goes out there and does his thing every time."

Fiske said the biggest disappointment with Gun Runner missing the Pegasus was the lost opportunity to assess the colt's status for the $10 million Dubai World Cup sponsored by Emirates Airline (G1).

"That was a frustrating experience," Fiske said of the Fair Grounds situation. "But in racing there are some things you have control of and some you don't, and you can't get too worked up over the things you have no control over.

"The only reservation we had with the whole thing is we would like to have run him within that time frame so we could have gotten some sort of handle on whether to go to Dubai or not. That time frame is somewhat compressed now."

Fiske said representatives of Winchell Thoroughbreds and Three Chimneys would confer with Asmussen following the Razorback to determine if the World Cup was a "go."

"We try to keep everything under consideration all the time," Fiske said of the decision-making for Gun Runner's next start. "A horse like him, there are only a few places where you would consider running him. It is pretty easy to map out a campaign for a horse of his ability."