The most prominent trainer not to win the Kentucky Derby has the early favorite for the 2022 running at Churchill Downs.
On closing day of the Saratoga meeting that he became the leading North American trainer by races won, Steve Asmussen saddled the Hopeful Stakes winner for the third consecutive year. Gunite, from the first crop of 2017 Horse of the Year Gun Runner and with the same connections, took the year's first race for 2-year-old colts in impressive style Monday.
Making his fifth start, the second after a layoff, Gunite cruised to victory in a race whose past winners include Triple Crown champions Secretariat and Affirmed. Sent to the lead by Ricardo Santana Jr. before the field reached the turn, Gunite clicked seven furlongs in 1:23.08 over a sloppy track and paid $25.20, $6.90 and $5.40.
Wit, 3-5 favorite off two straight victories by a combined 14 lengths, finished second for trainer Todd Pletcher. Kevin's Folly, a Saratoga debut winner trained by Tom Amoss, finished third at 28-1.
In his last start, Gunite placed second to Bill Mott-trained High Oak going 6 1/2 furlongs in the Grade 2 Saratoga Special July 31. High Oak, the 5-2 second choice Monday and previously undefeated, finished fourth in the Hopeful.
Basin led a top-three sweep for Asmussen in the 2019 Hopeful and Jackie's Warrior repeated last year. An 11-time Oaklawn champion. Asmussen said Gunite's next start will be Belmont Park's Grade 1 Champagne, won last year by Jackie's Warrior, one of five Grade 1 winners for Asmussen at Saratoga this year.
Asmussen won this year's Grade 1 Arkansas Derby with Super Stock, co-owned by his father, but is 0-for-23 in the Kentucky Derby. A third-out winner at Churchill Downs, Gunite races for breeder Ron Winchell, whose Gun Runner won Oaklawn's Grade 3 Razorback Handicap in his championship season.