Rain Could Threaten Gun Runner's Razorback Hopes

The time off was well deserved.

After a nine-race sophomore campaign that saw Gun Runner show up from February through November, finishing his taxing year stronger than he began, the son of Candy Ride   earned the right to put his heels up for a bit and ready his frame for an assault on the handicap ranks in 2017.

If his most recent workout is any indicator, the grade 1 winner is over being sidelined. Bucking trainer Steve Asmussen's hallmark maintenance routine in a final pre-race move, Gun Runner ripped through five furlongs in a bullet :59 4/5 at Oaklawn Park Feb. 13 in his last serious work before his anticipated season debut in the $500,000 Razorback Handicap (G3) Feb. 20.

All are indicators that Winchell Thoroughbreds and Three Chimneys Farm's 4-year-old colt is bursting to give a first impression of what he can do as an older horse. Where an equine herpesvirus-1 outbreak at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots disrupted initial plans for his 2017 debut, a looming threat from Mother Nature could toss yet another wrench into his connections' best-laid hopes.

With Weather.com showing an 80% chance of rain in the Monday forecast for Hot Springs, Ark., and Gun Runner's worst races coming over off tracks, the potential is there for the overwhelming favorite for the 1 1/16-mile Razorback to scratch, Winchell Thoroughbreds manager David Fiske said Feb. 17. 

Only twice has Gun Runner finished worse than third in his 12 career starts. Once with a fourth-place effort in the 2015 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes (G2) over a sealed, sloppy Churchill Downs track and then when he ran fifth over another such surface at Monmouth Park in last July's betfair.com Haskell Invitational Stakes (G1).

Though a wet track is clearly not his preference, simply getting a race into Gun Runner may override that vulnerability as he was not able to start in the $12 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes (G1) Jan. 28 at Gulfstream Park due to restrictions placed on Fair Grounds-based horses as a result of that track's EHV-1 outbreak.

"There would be some discussion as to scratching him, for sure," Fiske said should the Oaklawn track come up wet for the Razorback. "But...he has to start somewhere. It may come down to that. So we'll see.

"He worked really well earlier in the week and barring the weather and the track condition, we're anticipating him running well. Typical Asmussen is, they put in a big work two weeks before the race and the week before is kind of a maintenance thing. For him to work like he did Monday, he was smoking. I think he just did it on his own really."

Missing the Pegasus has already had a domino effect on Gun Runner's early-season plans. Had he been able to run in that spot and give a good account of himself,  he would have been a likely candidate to wheel back in the $10 million Dubai World Cup Sponsored by Emirates Airline (G1) in March. Without a read on his form to this point, however, such an overseas venture is now extremely unlikely.

The good news is that when one handles a horse the quality of Gun Runner, the options before him are fairly obvious. After racking up three prior graded stakes victories and a third-place finish in the 2016 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1), Gun Runner took his form to the next level when he won the Nov. 25 Clark Handicap (G1) at Churchill Downs in gate-to-wire fashion—beating a field that included grade 1 winners Shaman Ghost, Hoppertunity, Effinex  , and Noble Bird.

"I tell people it's pretty simple to come up with a campaign for horses who are as good as he is," Fiske said. "There are only so many places where you can run him or want to run him. It's grade 1s for a lot of money. The Razorback doesn't exactly fit the grade 1 criteria but a half a million dollars is still a lot of money. So going forward ... anything that seems to fit between a mile and a mile and a quarter east of the Mississippi for a lot of money. We're working backwards from the Breeders' Cup."

If Mother Nature does not relent and Gun Runner either bypasses the Razorback or tackles an unfavorable surface, graded stakes winner Blue Tone could be primed to pull the upset. The Birdstone   gelding ships to Oaklawn for trainer Bob Hess Jr. off a 1 1/4 length win in the Jan. 7 San Gabriel Stakes (G3) that came over a sealed, sloppy Santa Anita Park main track.

That win in the 1 1/8-mile San Gabriel was the first graded score for 8-year-old Blue Tone, who also ran third behind Hoppertunity in the 2015 San Pasqual Stakes (G2).

"I've been watching all the preps and all the horses," Hess said. "Obviously, we were hoping Gun Runner would pass, but we're ready to go. We've been eyeballing races all over, New Orleans, Florida, New York, and Oaklawn as well, for quite a while."

Grade 3 winner Smack Smack is 0-for-6 at Oaklawn Park but enters off a runner-up effort behind fellow Razorback entrant Domain's Rap in the Fifth Season Stakes there Jan. 13. Domain's Rap was second in last year's edition of the Razorback.