Two elite trainers seeking their first Kentucky Derby win will saddle the favorites, Zandon and Epicenter, for Saturday’s race

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. — When Steve Asmussen walked out of his barn on the afternoon of May 5, 2007, he knew, just knew, that he was going to win the Kentucky Derby.

He grasped the inherent uncertainty around a 20-horse field, but he had that much faith in Curlin, the contender he had trained for the moment.

Asmussen was right about the tough chestnut colt; Curlin would go on to win Horse of the Year twice and make the Hall of Fame. “But not on that day,” his trainer said, reflecting on the third-place finish that dowsed his Derby dreams.

Fifteen years later, Asmussen will exit his barn at Churchill Downs with another contender, Epicenter, who has done everything right on his way to the first Saturday in May. In that span since Curlin’s Derby, Asmussen has won two Preakness Stakes, the Belmont Stakes and six Breeders’ Cup races. Last year, he became the winningest trainer in North American history, with his total now approaching 10,000. But he still has not won the first leg of the Triple Crown series, the race he began fantasizing about in the 1970s as the younger son in a horse-obsessed family in Laredo, Texas.

After 23 unsuccessful attempts, has his time come with Epicenter?

“I’m unbelievably excited, I really am,” Asmussen said. “He has done everything that you would have wanted him to do, in his training and in his races, from last fall until now. He gives you very little to talk about because we’ve been seeing this for a long time: a confident horse who’s a great physical [specimen] that’s doing well.”

The only horse with shorter odds in the morning line, Zandon, also comes from a highly accomplished trainer with no Derby victory on his resume. Chad Brown won the Eclipse Award for outstanding trainer every year from 2016 to 2019. His dominance on turf is unparalleled in North America. But he has not put as much focus on preparing 3-year-olds for the Derby as Asmussen, Todd Pletcher or Bob Baffert, his peers at the highest level of the profession. Though Brown won the 2017 Preakness with Cloud Computing and finished second in the 2018 Derby with Good Magic, he sees Zandon as his best shot so far at a Derby triumph.

“It just seems like everything’s lined up the right way for this horse,” Brown said.

The battle between Epicenter and Zandon, and by extension Asmussen and Brown, will headline a Derby packed with viable contenders. We have Pletcher-trained Mo Donegal, who impressed with a furious charge in the April 9 Wood Memorial. We have White Abarrio, who did nothing but win on the Florida prep circuit for fast-rising trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. We have the speedy West Coast duo of Messier and Taiba, who came up in the barn of the suspended Baffert and are now under the care of Tim Yakteen.

Rival trainers seemed most focused on Epicenter and Zandon, however, when handicapping the field. “Those are the two that, I’m going to be watching where those two are,” said Kenny McPeek, whose Smile Happy finished runner-up to Epicenter in the Feb. 19 Risen Star Stakes and runner-up to Zandon in the April 9 Blue Grass Stakes. “Especially Epicenter.”

He was asked if Epicenter might get jammed up because he’s breaking from the No. 3 post with a crowd of 17 horses to his outside. “Yeah, but he’s tactical,” McPeek said. “He laid on the inside in the Louisiana Derby. He didn’t get all wrapped up in an early speed duel, and he kicked on home. He looks great out there right now; he’s the horse to beat.”

Brown agreed, despite his faith in Zandon. When the top contenders met in the Risen Star at Fair Grounds Race Course in Louisiana, Epicenter led the entire way and was never seriously threatened.

“This horse has done nothing wrong,” Brown said of his rival. “He’s versatile. He can win from the front. He can rate off horses. He’s not going to have a problem with the distance. He has a great trainer and a great team preparing him. He’s got a wonderful pedigree. If you find a fault in him, let me know, because I don’t see it.”

In recent years, the Derby has favored horses that run on or near the lead. Epicenter has won from both positions.

Zandon, meanwhile, fell well back of the pace in his last two races after running much closer to the lead in the Dec. 4 Remsen Stakes.

Brown did not feel Zandon’s third-place performance in the Risen Star, where he jumped up awkwardly at the break, reflected his ability. He also did not love the colt’s trip in the Blue Grass, where Zandon fell to last before fighting his way through traffic to catch Smile Happy.

The trainer acknowledged he was worried watching the opening half of that final prep race. He left it wondering how good Zandon might be with an ideal trip in the Derby.

“He just doesn’t give up,” Brown said. “When he has horses in his sight, he’s eager to go get them.”

He’s not convinced his horse is the deep closer he appeared to be in the Blue Grass, predicting Zandon, a 3-1 morning-line favorite, could run in the front half of the field early in Saturday’s Derby. “If he gets a clean break and goes on with it in the first turn, I want him in that front 10, not in the back,” Brown said.

It’s fascinating to hear high-level trainers contextualize their quest to win the Derby. Some openly acknowledge it as the race that animates their dreams. Others take a cooler approach, paying deference to the luck required to have the right horse and the right race setup at the right moment.

“It’s no disgrace to have never won the Kentucky Derby,” McPeek said, ticking off names of great trainers who came up short at Churchill Downs. “You can still be really good at this and not.”

Brown, 43, said it would be an honor to win the Derby but that it would not change his perception of his career. The diverse successes of his stable are more important to him than one race.

“It’s a part of our stable to try and have these dirt colts to get to the Triple Crown,” he said. “But sometimes, you’re running against stables where the majority of their stable is dirt type of colts. They don’t have a lot of turf horses or a lot of female horses. They don’t keep older horses around.”

Asmussen, 56, has lived through more years of disappointment at the Derby, not just with Curlin but with other standouts such as Gun Runner, who finished third in 2016 before winning Horse of the Year honors as a 4-year-old.

Epicenter is running faster at an early age than any of them, but Asmussen has seen enough to know talent isn’t the end of the story.

“The feeling of wanting to win the Derby started probably the first time I ever watched it on TV as a kid, growing up in a racing family,” he said. “Whether it’s the 20 runners, the post position, the track conditions on that day, there are so many things. More than any race, the Kentucky Derby is an event. It’s just, it’s larger than an actual race.”

148th Kentucky Derby

Saturday

Post time: 6:57 p.m.

TV: Chs. 11, 4 (coverage begins at 2:30 p.m.)

Horse (by post position); Odds (as of Friday morning)

Mo Donegal (1); 10-1

Happy Jack (2); 30-1

Epicenter (3); 7-2

Summer Is Tomorrow (4); 30-1

Smile Happy (5); 20-1

Messier (6); 8-1

Crown Pride (7); 20-1

Charge It (8); 20-1

Tiz the Bomb (9); 30-1

Zandon (10); 3-1

Pioneer of Medina (11); 30-1

Taiba (12); 12-1

Simplification (13); 20-1

Barber Road (14); 30-1

White Abarrio (15); 10-1

Cyberknife (16); 20-1

Classic Causeway (17); 30-1

Tawny Port (18); 30-1

Zosos (19); 20-1

Ethereal Road (20); 30-1*

Rich Strike (21); 30-1

*-scratched