Pyro Wins Triple Crown Respect

Asmussen Colt Takes Risen Star, Haskin's No.1 Spot for TC Contention

Mar 4, 2008

It's very early in the Triple Crown hunt, yet Pyro's victory in the Risen Star Stakes earned him Steve Haskin's Derby Dozen No.1and mention for the Triple Crown.

Steve Asmussen has the Risen Star (Stakes) in his pocket with Pyro, the young and rising three-year-old who received the No. 1 position on The Blood-Horse writer Steve Haskin's early Derby Dozen this past week.

Pyro's notable win in the Risen Star (named for a Secretariat son) got lots of attention, and he seems to be the chief competition for War Pass, the highly touted 2007 Juvenile Champion Male Eclipse Award winner. War Pass also blasted to an impressive start, remaining unbeaten with a 7-1/2 lengths win in an allowance race at Gulfstream Park, Florida. Nick Zito's War Pass is the season's Experimental Free Handicap high weight at 127 pounds.

Asmussen's obvious stable star is Curlin, who will compete at the world level later this month in Dubai's growing racing carnival, but Pyro is gaining ground.

Pyro's victory at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans was a two-length stretch after he had trailed the field in the early furlongs. He beat his stablemate, Z Fortune, but he has finished second to War Pass in their head-to-head battles thus far, in the Champagne Stakes and in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, both held last fall.

War Pass and Pyro are already on a collision course for this season's Kentucky Derby and possibly the next two races after that, the Preakness Stakes in Maryland and the Belmont Stakes in New York, which combined make up the American Triple Crown. It's early in the year, but the fever for a Triple Crown champion has reached great heights in the American thoroughbred racing world, as no colt has been able to capture all three races since Affirmed did it against his best rival of two seasons, Alydar, in 1978.

The TC drought had some sprinkles in recent years with Smarty Jones winning his first two races of the crown in 2004 while remaining unbeaten in his career, Funny Cide getting the first two out of nowhere in 2003, and War Emblem's first two triumphs in 2002. None of the three could win the Belmont Stakes.

In the 1990s, Charismatic (1999) almost got there, but unfortunately pulled up lame in his final strides of the Belmont. Lemon Drop Kid won. In 1998, Real Quiet took second in the Belmont to Victory Gallop, and Silver Charm finished the Belmont second to Touch Gold in 1997.

Others to Lose the Triple Crown in the Belmont Stakes Are:

In 1932 and in 1936, Burgoo King and Bold Venture, respectively, won the first two legs of the triple, but did not start in the Belmont Stakes.

More than twenty other thoroughbreds have won two of the three races, although they didn't score in the first two, the Derby and the Preakness, back-to-back.

Zito's War Pass, and Asmussen's Pyro have much ahead that must fall into place for them before they approach the Triple Crown attempt, but that first Saturday in May, when the Kentucky Derby looms larger than life in sports, soon will be right around the corner. War Pass and Pyro, with any racing luck, will be right in the thick of things.

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