When Crown Imperial won the $500,000 Untapable Stakes at Kentucky Downs a year ago, breeder-owner Sharilyn Gasaway was understandably excited about the 2-year-old filly's first stakes victory.
"This is the biggest win for us," she said.
Crown Imperial returns to Kentucky Downs Saturday for the $2 million AGS Music City (G2), but she no longer has the top resume of the horses that the Gasaway family has raced. That position belongs to Mystik Dan, who won the Kentucky Derby (G1) on May 4 and was second in the Preakness Stakes (G1).
"Can you believe that?" Gasaway said Wednesday during a phone interview.
Sharilyn and Brent Gasaway's family stable is 4 G Racing, the co-breeders and co-owners of Mystik Dan with their partners Lance Gasaway (Brent's cousin), Daniel Hamby III and Valley View Farm. Mystik Dan had not made his career debut when trainer John Ortiz changed Crown Imperial's running style and she came from off the pace to win the Untapable by 1 1/4 lengths at 13-1.
Crown Imperial is the result of an unexpected turn events that turned 4 G's Mi Fiori from a pleasure horse at the Gasaway's farm in Arkansas to a broodmare in Kentucky. The Gasaways purchased Mi Fiori as a 2-year-old and lost her in her seventh start, a $50,000 claimer on June 5, 2016. They re-acquired her for $17,500 on Dec. 7, 2017. They raced her just one more time and retired her.
A year and a half later Mi Fiori's status as a pet changed when her half-brother, Gucci Factor, won the Poker Stakes (G3) in New York.
"I was just going to try and learn how to ride," Gasaway said. "I brought her home and I was riding her and had two different people call me about her. I said, 'If they're going to breed her, I will.' That's how it happened."
By Classic Empire, Crown Imperial is the first foal out the mare. The 2-year-old filly Reining Flowers by Midnight Storm is 1-2-1 in four starts and was third by three-quarters of a length last month in the P.G. Johnson at Saratoga, her stakes debut. Mi Fiori has a yearling colt Golden Rule, by Goldencents, who sired Mystik Dan.
Mi Fiori and Mystik Dan's dam Ma'am make up half of the Gasaways' broodmare band.
"We go to the sales and we really haven't had that much luck because all of the horses have been going for more than we're willing to pay," she said. "We just have been trying to do the breeding thing and hope that we get lucky with a few. We have been very fortunate."
Gasaway said that re-acquiring Mi Fiori became a personal project for her.
"It took me a year and a half to get her after she got claimed away from us," Gasaway said. "She was just the sweetest horse and I was determined to get her back. I was just going to retire her to have a nice life and be another lawn ornament in our backyard and let me ride on her some. Then it worked out to be more special than that."
The Gasaways expect to be at Kentucky Downs this weekend to see Crown Imperial compete in the Music City on Saturday and Neat, who they are partners in, runs Sunday in the $1.5 million Global Tote Gun Runner Stakes (G3). Their maiden Material Witness is entered Wednesday.
Mystik Dan's surprise victory in America's biggest race thrust Gasaway and her family and their partners into the spotlight.
"Isn't that something? It's just amazing," she said. "We just never would have dreamed that in a million years. I guess everybody always hopes for that fairy tale story. It has truly lived up to that."
Mystik Dan has been on a vacation away from the track since he finished eighth in the Belmont Stakes at Saratoga on June 8.
"We did give him a break," she said. "We shouldn't have run him in the Belmont. He got sick that week and I think it was the toll was not having a break. We normally give horses a break and I think that just caught up to him.
"He's doing amazing right now. They are just jogging him at the farm under tack. He'll probably go back to Churchill within a week or so. That's kind of what I'm hearing. I'm hoping I can see him when I run up to Lexington before he heads up that way.
Gasaway said Mystik Dan may be ready to race again in December
"We're planning to race him as a 4-year-old," she said. "I think he'll even be a better 4-year-old than he was a 3-year-old. We're excited about it."
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