Magnitude exited his facile Feb. 28 victory in the Razorback Handicap at Oaklawn Park in good order and is scheduled to breeze this weekend at Fair Grounds. He remains on course for the Dubai World Cup on March 28 at Meydan Racecourse, trainer Steve Asmussen said Thursday.
Asmussen expressed confidence that the $12 million World Cup will go forward as planned despite Dubai and the entire Arabian Peninsula being caught up in an aerial war pitting Israel and the United States against Iran. Dubai itself has come under limited attacks from Iran, though the emirate continues to project normalcy, and a scheduled race card Friday at Meydan went forward as planned.
Dubai and Iran at their closest point are separated by roughly 30 miles of the Strait of Hormuz, the busy maritime corridor which Iran essentially shut down this week. The United States Department of State on March 3 issued a Level 3 travel advisory for Dubai, the second most urgent advisory level, and suggests American citizens “reconsider travel” there.
Magnitude, whom Asmussen trains for Ron Winchell’s Winchell Thoroughbreds, missed an intended start in the Saudi Cup last month after spiking a fever just before he was scheduled to depart New Orleans. Magnitude, who ended his 3-year-old season last year with a win in the Grade 2 Clark over Dubai World Cup-bound Hit Show, missed no more than a handful of training days because of the minor illness and enjoyed what looked like a perfect prep in the Razorback, which he won by a measured 1 3/4 lengths.
“It was what we were expecting,” Asmussen said. “He’d been training brilliantly.”
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Asmussen also has back in his barn another older dirt-route stakes runner, 5-year-old Hall of Fame, whom Asmussen trained for the first 10 of the horse’s 11 starts. Hall of Fame most recently raced in July, finishing fourth in the San Diego Handicap for trainer Michael McCarthy. Last Fair Grounds season, he won the Grade 3 Mineshaft and was second in the New Orleans Classic.
Having logged just three workouts since resuming steady racetrack training, Hall of Fame won’t be ready for the March 21 New Orleans Classic and won’t start until later this spring in Kentucky, Asmussen said.
Asmussen also now trains the 3-year-old filly Rileytole, who finished second by a nose on Oct. 4 in the Grade 1 Frizette when last seen racing. Trained last year by Saffie Joseph Jr., Rileytole races for longtime Asmussen clients William and Corinne Heiligbrodt, and she could make her 3-year-old debut sometime during the Oaklawn Park meet, Asmussen said.
Two other Asmussen-trained, Fair Grounds-based 3-year-olds, the filly Snow Face Princess and the colt Knock It Off, are bound for Keeneland stakes in April. Snow Face Princess won the Bolton Landing at Saratoga before Winchell bought her at an August auction for $775,000 and sent her to Asmussen, for whom she was second in the Untapable at Kentucky Downs before being put away. Asmussen said Snow Face Princess has wintered well and will make her 3-year-old debut in the Limestone, a turf sprint, on April 10.
Knock It Off runs one week earlier at Keeneland in the Lafayette over seven furlongs on dirt. Knock It Off has captured two six-furlong Fair Grounds dirt races to start his career, winning his January debut and a first-level allowance Feb. 14.
◗ Liberty National, considered late last year and early this year a Kentucky Derby prospect by his connections, was euthanized at a Louisiana veterinary clinic after suffering a spiral fracture in his leg during a Feb. 21 workout at Fair Grounds, trainer Kenny McPeek said. Liberty National, by Maxfield, campaigned for Brookdale Racing, Fern Circle Stables, and Magdalena Racing.
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