Another Curlin for Asmussen?

He's training the defending Horse of the Year and one of the leading 3-year-olds, and they're half a world apart, in the Middle East and the Big Easy. While Curlin awaits the $6-million Dubai World Cup on March 29 in his stall at Nad al Sheba Racecourse, Steve Asmussen is preparing Pyro for Saturday's 1 1/16-mile Louisiana Derby. When I asked him Tuesday if Curlin's emergence as King of the World lessened the pressure to win his first Kentucky Derby, Asmussen said, "The success we've had with Curlin has been very satisfying, but it's separate. I think Pyro is a tremendous opportunity. . . It's been good fortune. Coming from a racing family, I know it doesn't have to go this way. It means everything to us."

Last year Asmussen made his Triple Crown breakthrough when Curlin ran down Street Sense in the final jump of the Preakness. Asmussen hopes Pyro will give him his first Derby, and his last-to-first rally last time out in the 1 1/16-mile Risen Star Stakes at the Fair Grounds was very encouraging.

Asmussen was watching at ground level between the eighth pole and the sixteenth pole when jockey Shaun Bridgmohan took Pyro wide entering the stretch and blew away the field. "Watching it outside live, it was very impressive to watch him accelerate," Asmussen said. "My reaction was somewhat of disbelief."

Although Pyro lost three times last year to 2-year-old champion War Pass, Asmussen said he is more confident about Pyro's Derby chances than he was about Curlin's. The eventual Breeders' Cup Classic winner didn't make his career debut until Feb. 3, and after his first-out runaway for trainer Helen Pitts, Curlin was sold and switched to Asmussen's barn. He had only two more races before the Derby, where he predictably ran greenly early and finished a distant third.

"The time frame with Curlin was very tight," Asmussen said. "With Pyro, we've been working with him since May and experience isn't an issue."

Pyro is "big and scopy, a majestic-looking horse", Asmussen said, and his pedigree (by Pulpit) and late-running style should pose no problems for the classic distances. His temperament is a concern, though. He got very upset before the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, when he was second to the front-running War Pass but was one of the few horses to make up ground late that day in the slop at Monmouth Park.

"He's on the nervous side. I think we have an extremely talented individual without the maturity of Curlin. The way he finished in the Risen Star showed he's obviously a very fast horse. I'm trying to work on what he does in the middle of the race, to get him from point A to point B."