Rave Review for Azeri Workout

The workout was 48 hours old, yet trainer Laura de Seroux was still bubbling.

“She was floating and reaching,” De Seroux said of Azeri, who stunned clockers at the San Luis Rey Downs training center on Saturday by going a half-mile in 45 4/5 seconds.

Azeri, last year’s horse of the year, needed a sharp workout to reassure De Seroux and Michael Paulson, the horse’s owner, that she was ready to try to repeat in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff. The 5-year-old mare’s 11-race win streak was shattered when she finished third -- then moved up to second after a disqualification -- in the Lady’s Secret Handicap at Santa Anita on Sept. 28. After the race, Azeri was found to have bled from the lungs, and she also had a high white-cell blood count.

“She’s feeling very good now,” De Seroux said Monday. “We believe now that her poor performance was due to the sickness rather than the bleeding.”

Azeri needs to be on her game in the Distaff. The field includes Got Koko, who beat her in the Lady’s Secret, and Sightseek, who has won four consecutive Grade I races. Sightseek could even go off the slight favorite, which would be a departure for Azeri, who has been favored in her last 11 starts.

Paulson was critical of Mike Smith’s ride in the Lady’s Secret, but according to De Seroux he has softened his position since then, and Smith is scheduled to ride in the Distaff, a race he has won three times. Besides his win aboard Azeri last year, Smith also won the Distaff with Ajina -- owned by Paulson’s father, Allen -- in 1997 and Inside Information in 1975.

Azeri’s workout was the best of 10 horses at that distance Saturday and was 1 3/5 seconds faster than the next-fastest horse. De Seroux, the first woman to train a horse of the year, was asked if Azeri’s workout surprised her.

“Nothing Azeri does surprises me,” she said. “She wasn’t frantic

De Seroux said that the possibility of running against males in the Classic, which Paulson had mentioned, has been ruled out. This should effectively eliminate Azeri from horse-of-the-year consideration this time, but she could win another Eclipse Award as divisional champion with a second win in the Distaff. The only horse to win the Distaff twice has been Bayakoa in 1989-90. De Seroux said that Azeri will have one more workout at San Luis Rey.

“We’ll work her [six furlongs] on Friday, then scope her afterward just to make sure,” the trainer said.

Azeri will be sent by van to Santa Anita three days before the race. “I hope the air quality is better for the Breeders’ Cup,” De Seroux said. “It wasn’t too good for the Lady’s Secret. A lot of horses had trouble breathing that day.”

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Cuvee, who has inherited the favorite’s role for the Juvenile with the puzzling dropout of Ruler’s Court, worked five furlongs in 1:01 3/5 on Monday at Churchill Downs.

Steve Asmussen, who trains Cuvee, has two other Breeders’ Cup hopefuls, Lady Tak in the Distaff and Posse in the Sprint. They’ll arrive at Santa Anita a week from Wednesday.

“Churchill Downs is a track I feel very comfortable training over,” Asmussen said. “I would run anywhere off of training at Churchill.”

His brother, Cash Asmussen, won the 1997 Breeders’ Cup Mile with Spinning World before he retired. Steve has never had a Breeders’ Cup starter.

Cuvee, who races for Spendthrift Farm and Ron Winchell, son of the late Verne Winchell, has won four of five starts, including the Grade I Belmont Futurity on Sept. 14, but has never run farther than a mile and has not been tested around two turns, which is perceived as a litmus test for young horses.

The Juvenile, a two-turn race at 1 1/16 miles, will be loaded with inexperienced, unaccomplished horses. The stay-at-home position of those that race Ruler’s Court, Eurosilver, Birdstone and Silver Wagon has assured that. All division leaders, all on the sidelines.

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Although Tenpins’ trainer, Don Winfree, would like to run in the Classic, the horse’s owner, Joe Vitello, has canceled the trip. “I thought we would have had a great chance,” said Winfree, who will run Tenpins at Keeneland in the Fayette, a race the horse won last year. Tenpins finished second to Perfect Drift in the Hawthorne Gold Cup.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Breeders’ Cup

* When: Oct. 25.

* Where: Santa Anita.

* TV: Channel 4.

* Races: $4-million Classic, $2-million Turf, $2-million Distaff, $1.5-million Mile, $1-5-million Juvenile, $1-million Juvenile Fillies, $1-million Filly & Mare, $1-million Sprint.