Asmussen seeks sixth Debutante Stakes win with Epic Reign
Asmussen can win the Debutante for a sixth time with Epic Reign, the last-to-first Churchill maiden winner who crushed her debut by 4 1/4 lengths.
Steve Asmussen will try to collect a sixth Debutante Stakes victory when Epic Reign lines up for the June 28 race at Churchill Downs, and the filly arrives with the right kind of opening act. She won her debut at the Louisville track by 4 1/4 lengths, came from last to first, and stamped herself as a 2-year-old who can already handle the six-furlong demands of summer stakes racing.
The Debutante will be run as a $225,000 stakes for 2-year-old fillies on dirt, with Churchill Downs limiting the field to 14 starters. That field shape matters because the race tends to reward juveniles that already show something real, whether that comes from a sharp first out or from early-season progress into tougher company. Epic Reign fits that profile, and so do several of the fillies waiting in the gate. Pierette, a Girvin filly out of Praising, comes in as a local maiden winner with Jose L. Ortiz set to ride for Mark E. Casse, while True Blessing brings a Gulfstream Park first-out win for Repole Stable. Valkyrie adds another Churchill-based winner to a race that will give horsemen a clearer read on the summer juvenile pecking order.
Epic Reign’s own debut was efficient and decisive. On May 28 at Churchill Downs, she covered five and one-half furlongs in 1:06.17 in a maiden special weight for 2-year-old fillies and returned $9.62 to win. The Equibase chart lists her as a Kentucky-bred bay filly foaled Feb. 10, 2024, by Epicenter out of Simply Sovereign, by American Pharoah. Winchell Thoroughbreds LLC owns and bred her, and Keith Asmussen, the trainer’s son, rode the debut and is expected back aboard from post 3.
For Steve Asmussen, the race has been a familiar target. Churchill Downs’ 2016 advance showed him entering multiple fillies while chasing a fifth Debutante win, a sign that the stable has long viewed the event as a useful barometer for its best early juveniles. The closing-day card around it only sharpens the stakes, with the Hanshin Stakes, Maxfield Stakes and Bashford Manor all on the same program. A sixth Debutante would deepen Asmussen’s hold on a race he has repeatedly used to launch promising fillies into the summer.
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