'He's off to one of the best starts ever' - first Grade 1 winner for Gun Runner

Steve Asmussen knew someone was going to be the first trainer to win a Grade 1 with a Gun Runner offspring, so he figured why not him.

The leading trainer does have an emotional attachment to Three Chimneys Farm's first-crop stallion after training the 2017 Horse of the Year and handling him through six Grade 1 wins and $15.9 million in earnings.

Helping in that regard is that Asmussen just so happens to have several talented Gun Runner youngsters, including one very fleet filly who will always be attached to her sire.

On an afternoon filled with intermittent rain, Winchell Thoroughbreds and L and N Racing's Echo Zulu gave Asmussen the distinction of training Gun Runner's first Grade 1 winner as she motored to a four-length victory in the $300,000 Spinaway Stakes for two-year-old fillies at Saratoga.

"I can't measure how much I wanted to have Gun Runner's first Grade 1 winner," said Asmussen. "Obviously he's a tremendous sire but somebody had to be first and I'm glad it was us."

With ten winners in North America to his credit already, Gun Runner had previously been represented in the winner's circle after Graded strikes by Pappacap and the Asmussen-trained Wicked Halo. Zulu Echo, out of the Menifee mare Letgomyecho, took it to a new level of success.

"Gun Runner is off to one of the best starts ever," said owner Michael Levinson of L and N Racing. "There's nothing else you can say about it."

More might be said when Pappacap runs in the Del Mar Futurity and Asmussen sends out Saratoga Special Stakes runner-up Gunite in the Hopeful Stakes at the Spa. But, for now, the talk involved a scintillating win by Echo Zulu and a handful of Grade 1 wins at the Spa for her trainer.

About 24 hours after Asmussen collected his third Grade 1 win at the meet with Max Player in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, he added more gold to the trophy case with Echo Zulu.

"It's unbelievable," he said. "We have great horses and have unbelievable opportunities, like having a two-year-old filly like her. What can you say? Setting [the all-time record for wins] here on Whitney Day. That's pretty good timing from 31 years back. It's divine intervention."

For Levinson, it marked consecutive years with Grade 1 wins at Saratoga with a foal by Letgomyecho, as he also won the 2020 H. Allen Jerkens Stakes with the Asmussen-trained Echo Town, Zulu Echo's half-brother.

Levinson said: "To have back-to-back Grade 1 winners at Saratoga out of the same mare...it's hard to describe."

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