Gasaway Punching Above Weight Again

Even after slaying Goliath, David still only had a sling. So while Lance Gasaway did once stun all the monster programs, if anything that only renders the odds of doing so again steeper yet. Not that he minds that.

“My whole life, I've been an underdog,” Gasaway reflects. “Playing football in college, I was 175 pounds and 5'11”. So not a very big guy. I walked on, didn't get a scholarship. But my brother was a year older, my twin cousins older again. So growing up, I had always competed against bigger, faster, stronger athletes. I was never afraid of that. I just knew that I had to push myself to their level. And I've always relished that role. It just drives me more.”

The same spirit famously rubbed off on Mystik Dan, the son of Goldencents co-bred by Gasaway from a claiming mare, to win the 2024 GI Kentucky Derby under the inspired tutelage of Kenny McPeek. Despite winning three other graded stakes, and running second in the GI Preakness Stakes, Mystik Dan must now prove himself all over again at stud. But Gasaway has evidently not used up all his luck just yet.

True, it seemed that way when 10-length maiden winner and GI Breeders' Futurity runner-up Blackout Time (Not This Time) was a veterinary scratch ahead of the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile last fall–especially when Mystik Dan was himself promptly excluded from the Mile.

“That was not very fun,” Gasaway acknowledges. “I had my family out there and you wake up one morning, get a gut shot; and next morning get another call, another gut shot. Don't get me wrong. It's good that they're trying to protect these horses. But when you're talking about some mild bone-bruising, or a little roughage around an ankle, there's got to be a little leeway. Mystik Dan had what any 4-year-old out there running will have. Some wear-and-tear is just part of the game.”

Whatever the rights and wrongs on the day, Gasaway recognizes that the further patience since required with Blackout Time is paying off. It had ended up a rush to get him ready for the GII Rebel Stakes, where he shaped okay, but then failed to progress in the GI Arkansas Derby.

“Then we felt like we were sitting in a good spot going to the [GI] American Turf,” Gasaway explains. “But he ended up popping an abscess around the coronary band, which set us back again. We basically had to take a quarter of his hoof off.”

While it is now growing back nicely, Blackout Time still wore a three-quarter shoe when resurfacing in a Churchill allowance on June 27. It didn't hold him back. Destroying his field by six lengths, he looked every inch a sophomore eligible to pick up the pieces against those coming off busier campaigns.

“We feel like he's on the right track now,” Gasaway confirms. “We thought he was real promising last year. In the Breeders' Futurity he was stuck in a pocket: when Ted Noffey (Into Mischief) went to move, we couldn't. But when we did get out, we stayed consistent with him. So we felt like we had a lot more horse coming into this year.”

In the event, it proved too much to hope that they might have found another Derby horse, so soon. After all, McPeek bought Blackout Time as a yearling–for $210,000 at Fasig-Tipton October–just five months after Gasaway and his partners had put a blanket of roses on Mystik Dan.

“It's probably for the best that we didn't get him there,” Gasaway accepts. “I don't think he was ready, physically. Everything happens for a reason, and we've had to let him grow up and mature.”

McPeek said he plans to run the colt in the July 29 Curlin Stakes.

“But like Kenny says, we need to take one step at a time,” Gasaway emphasizes. “We want to progress him, not rush him. But if he fires a big shot, then we could take a look.”

Blackout Time is not alone in filling the void left by Mystik Dan's retirement. On that same Churchill card, Twinkle Town (Take Charge Indy) won on debut by a similar margin. The colt–co-bred with Gasaway's late father Clint plus his cousin Brent, and Brent's wife Sharilyn–is out of stakes-placed Southern Grayce (Liam's Map). He will run next in the August 1 Saratoga Special.

Blackout Time | Coady Media

“The only problem is that when 2-year-olds win this early, there's not much for them,” Gasaway says. “Ultimately, the goal is to try to get him to the [GIII] Iroquois Stakes at Churchill, but that's mid-September. But it just shows what can happen if you surround yourself with good people. I've been told that I'm pretty lucky. I think blessed, more than lucky, is the way I would say it. Kenny does such a great job picking these horses. I mean, it's all his eye. Basically, I just look at the pedigrees and say whether or not I'm interested. I've seven 2-year-olds coming up this year and Twinkle Town was the first to run.”

Mystik Dan is the second consecutive Derby winner retired to Airdrie.

“We can't say enough about how good they've been,” Gasaway said with enthusiasm. “We're tickled to death. I'm not sure the exact number he ended up breeding, but he got enough to have a chance to prove himself.”

Mystik Dan's rags-to-riches dam Ma'am (Colonel John), retained at $2.9 million when offered the November after the Derby, has an Into Mischief weanling colt and is back in foal to the champion sire.

If Mystik Dan starts his second career somewhat like his first, as an underdog $15,000 cover, that blue-collar profile worked out pretty well first time round–and continues to suit Gasaway just fine.

“Like I say, I just feel blessed,” he says. “Only 150 people had won the Kentucky Derby in its history when he did it. I mean, I'm just a farmer. A farmer's son, and my mom was a teacher. We're from a small town, 1,500 people living there when we grew up. But we grew up loving this sport. For something like that to happen is just real surreal. It's out of our hands.”

The Gasaways with Ma'am | Katie Petrunyak

That said, he always had that competitive streak–and duly feels that the Turf has filled a void, after his University of Arkansas Hall-of-Fame career as a wide receiver.

Once finished there, he volunteered to do some coaching at his old high school, Star City.

“And I remember talking one day with the head coach, Happy Grayson, and him saying, 'I'd rather have the athlete that has less ability but a big heart, who wants it real bad, than one that has all the ability in the world and doesn't care,'” Gasaway recalls. “And when you think about it, that's kind of where I put myself. I was of less ability, but had the heart and desire. And I think the same thing goes to these horses. If they have that desire, that heart, they're winners.

“Just to get a horse in a Derby is a miracle. I mean, you're talking about 20 horses out of however many babies, what, 10,000? And on top of all of that, these horses are so fragile. But we bred our mare for $10,000 and then beat horses they paid millions for. It's been a great ride, and a wild one.”