While Lance Gasaway doesn’t have a horse in this year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic, the Star City farmer and horse owner will showcase an up-and-coming star to the rest of the racing world Friday in Del Mar, Calif., north of San Diego.
Charlie Cooper, a Pine Bluff native and handicapper, predicts Gasaway’s Blackout Time will win the ninth race of Friday’s Breeders’ Cup schedule at Del Mar Park. Gasaway emerged into the racing spotlight after Mystik Dan, which he owns with 4G Racing, stunned prognosticators in a photo finish to win the 2024 Kentucky Derby.
Cooper was not among those stunned. He picked the upset, as well as 2025 winner Sovereignty, att 5-1 to beat Journalism, the 3-1 favorite.
“(Gasaway’s) whole family, they’re hard-working farmers and they work hard and they live right,” Cooper said. “I guess that’s what you can attribute to them being so fortunate to having a Kentucky Derby winner like they had last year. But I think the horse that’s running Friday could be our Kentucky Derby winner next season. The horse is maturing like you wouldn’t believe.”
Irad Ortiz Jr. will ride aboard Blackout Time, which won at Ellis Park in Henderson, Ky., on Aug. 2 and came in second in a June 29 race at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., and Oct. 4 at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., behind Ted Noffey.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Cooper has Blackout Time, at 5-1 odds, as his favorite to win the 1 1/16-mile Breeders’ Cup Juvenile for 2-year-olds, even though Ted Noffey is unbeaten in three starts and has 4-5 odds.
“He just has tremendous luck with his horses, and you can attribute that to living right, doing right and working hard,” Cooper said of Gasaway. “Blackout Time has only had three races. He ran into a speed ball in the first race and the speed ball got away from him and he couldn’t catch him. The next time he ran, he went a mile and won by about 10 lengths with a stranglehold in a very good time.”
Plus, all the products of Blackout Time’s sire, Not This Time, have been winning consistently, Cooper added.
Mystik Dan, 4, will make his last career start Saturday in the Dirt Mile and go out to stud, according to Cooper.