by Jeff Lowe

To add to the hazy fallout from the Toyota Blue Grass Stakes (G1), Pyro breezed six furlongs on Monday in a morning fog so dense that he was not assigned an official time.

The Pulpit colt drilled six furlongs at Keeneland Race Course in company with Grade 3 winner Noonmark, said Scott Blasi, the chief assistant to trainer Steve Asmussen.

The workout was a critical step after Pyro’s tenth-place finish as the heavy favorite in the Blue Grass, which was his first start on a synthetic surface.

Asmussen and Blasi are convinced that Pyro simply did not handle the Polytrack at Keeneland in the Blue Grass, but he breezed to their satisfaction on the surface on Monday.

“He worked well, but there was no way of knowing how fast he went,” Blasi said. “[Clockers] wanted to make up times, this or that, but there was no way anybody clocked him. He worked outstanding.

“Noonmark’s a graded stakes winner, a pretty nice sprinter and good work horse, and Pyro did great. It wasn’t about how fast, it was about how he did it, how he galloped out, and we were very pleased with him.”

Blasi said Pyro would be shipped to Churchill Downs on Tuesday, and he will breeze there on April 28 in his final major preparation for the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1) on May 3. 

“Seeing his energy level and how well he was doing after the Blue Grass, Steve and I felt like the thing to do with him was to breeze him three-quarters with a horse of Noonmark’s quality,” Blasi said. “We think that he got plenty out of it and we’ll breeze him again on Monday at Churchill and probably not do too much with him because of what we did today.”

Asmussen’s other Derby candidate, Z Fortune, has been at Churchill since two days after his second-place finish in the Arkansas Derby (G2) on April 12, and he breezed four furlongs in :50.20 there on Monday.

Southwest Stakes (G3) winner Denis of Cork was on the Churchill work tab with a five-furlong drill in 1:00, which was the fastest of 23 moves at the distance.

At this point, Denis of Cork would need a defection to make it into the Derby field, which will be capped at the top 20 entrants based on graded stakes earnings. 

Jeff Lowe is a Thoroughbred Times staff writer