Barn Notes
Asmussen, Bridgmohan Rewrite FG Record Book
Headlines for Friday, December 28, 2007
· Asmussen, Bridgmohan Rewrite FG Record Book
· Curlin, Pyro Paired as Promising Next Door Neighbors at Fair Grounds
· Perrodin Continues Progress – Aims for Shreveport Return to Saddle
· Season-High Payoffs Top FG’s Post-Christmas Bargains
Asmussen, Bridgmohan Rewrite FG Record Book
NEW ORLEANS, La. – “Santa Sprint Saturday” – the four-stakes race package highlighting Fair Grounds 10-race program Dec. 22 – proved to be historic for the trainer-jockey combination of Steve Asmussen and Shaun Bridgmohan.
Sok Sok in the Sugar Bowl Stakes, Blitzing in the Letellier Memorial, Tres Dream in the Esplanade, and Stormin Baghdad in the Bonapaw gave Asmussen and Bridgmohan a Saturday stakes sweep. The human duo added to their stakes tally two days later with Inca King’s win in the Woodchopper Stakes.
Add in victories by War Wolf and He’s Got Grit on Saturday’s card, and Asmussen and Bridgmohan had combined for six winners.
The six wins is the most ever by a trainer in a single Fair Grounds card. While training superlatives are sketchy in Fair Grounds’ records, no one can recall a trainer winning more than five races in a day. (Interestingly, the late Fair Grounds conditioner Joey Dorignac once had six of his trainees cross under the wire first on a single afternoon in the 1980s, but one of those was disqualified.)
It could have been an even bigger afternoon for the duo, as the Asmussen-Bridgmohan combo missed a seventh win by a nose. That would have made Bridgmohan the lone jockey to ride seven winners on a single Fair Grounds program. The six-win afternoon mark by a jockey has now been accomplished nine times.
Asmussen, who went into Friday in a deadlock with Scott Lake for the national lead in training wins with 475, once recorded seven wins on a single program at Lone Star on July 14, 2002. He has won 10 races on a single day with horses racing at multiple tracks around the country.
Asmussen had a chance to reach double figures on Saturday, but bad luck at night got in the way of his good fortune in the afternoon. He won one race at Delta Downs Saturday night, but a power failure canceled the program at Sam Houston, where he had three morning-line program favorites entered.
Bridgmohan, 28, born on the island of Jamaica but raised in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., rode six winners on a single program at Aqueduct during the winter of 1998 while still an apprentice and went on to Eclipse Award-winning apprentice honors that season.
Although he is riding in New Orleans on a regular basis for the first time this winter, the personable Bridgmohan is known for starting off on a new circuit with a bang.
During his first and only summer based at Chicago’s Arlington Park in 2005, Bridgmohan captured the jockey championship there, and when riding at South Florida’s Gulfstream Park on a regular basis for the first time as a journeyman in 2006, he swept the three stakes events offered on the first Saturday of that meeting – and then came back the next day to win the lone stakes race scheduled that Sunday.
Still, even with an eye-catching week, Bridgmohan managed to get dismissed in the wagering in Thursday’s feature, when he got up in the last jump astride the Dallas Stewart-trained filly Keltish Lass. The West Point Thoroughbreds color-bearer returned $31.40.
Curlin, Pyro Paired as Promising Next Door Neighbors at Fair Grounds
Talk about an expensive neighborhood when speaking about Steve Asmussen’s Fair Grounds barn.
Occupying adjacent stalls in the Asmussen shedrow are 2007 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner and Horse of the Year favorite Curlin – within nodding distance of promising 2008 Triple Crown prospect Pyro.
Curlin is on a schedule of “two-minute licks” as his complicated ownership scenario inches closer to a solution that would allow him to race again during the coming season.
Pyro, second in the 2007 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile behind War Pass, has yet to post any local works but has earned the praise of Shaun Bridgmohan, the only jockey the Pulpit colt has ever known in four career starts.
“He’s definitely a really nice horse,” said Bridgmohan of Pyro, “and he’s going to get better.”
In an ESPN.com column, turf writer Bill Finley put Pyro No. 1 on his list of contenders for the 2008 Kentucky Derby.
Perrodin Continues Progress – Aims for Shreveport Return to Saddle
Veteran Louisiana-born jockey E. J. Perrodin, seriously injured in a pre-race spill at Fair Grounds on Nov. 23, plans to return to the saddle sometime during the Louisiana Downs meeting in May as he pursues the 14 victories necessary for him to reach the 3,000-career win milestone.
A native of Rayne, La., the 51-year-old Perrodin has ridden 20,687 mounts in a career that began in 1974, with 2,986 trips to the winner’s circle, 2,759 seconds, 2,646 thirds and $39,140,169 in purse earnings.
“I feel a little better every day,” said Perrodin from his Haughton, La., home Friday – exactly five weeks after his accident.
Perrodin suffered several broken ribs, a lacerated liver and multiple pelvis fractures after the filly No No Bad Kitty reared and rolled on him prior to the start of the final race of the day.
“I still am not able to do anything,” Perrodin explained. “I only move from a wheelchair to a hospital bed here at home. I haven’t been able to put any weight on my legs yet. I’m not in any pain anymore – I take a couple of pills a day for that – but I’m not trying to walk yet. Even so, when I get up in the morning I’m stiff, stiff, stiff – like you’d be on the morning after a hard workout.
“I’ve seen the x-rays of my pelvis and they’re not good looking,” Perrodin added. “I’ve got a screw in there as long as my hipbone, so my doctors told me not to rush things. I’m going to wait as long as I can before I start up again – I don’t want to push it.”
Season-High Payoffs Top FG’s Post-Christmas Bargains
A season-high win mutuel of $143.20 in Thursday’s first race kicked off a slew of post-holiday bargains as racing resumed at Fair Grounds Dec. 27 following a two-day Christmas hiatus.
Valene Farms’ Lucky Skat, ridden by Anthony Lovato and trained by Sturges Ducoing, made the pace and persevered willingly to hold on by a half-length in the opening event of the afternoon.
In addition to his season-high win payoff, Lucky Skat also helped produced three other payoff superlatives for the meet: $52.20 to place; $2,618.60 exacta, combined with runner-up Sarah’s Best Song, and $16,797.40 trifecta, with third-place finisher Storm Mine.
Then, when the Ramsey Zimmerman-ridden Ask The Lord came through in the second half of the Daily Double, that winning combination returned $597.60 – the highest double recorded at Fair Grounds during the first 22 days of the 2007-2008 meeting.
