Editor’s note: A feature on Magnitude from the Aug. 23, 2025, edition of The Saratoga Special. Then, he was looking to spring an upset of Kentucky Derby winner Sovereignty in the Travers. Magnitude finished third, 20 3/4 lengths behind Sovereignty. Nine or so months later, everything is different. Magnitude is the top older horse in the country – maybe the world – and rides a four-race winning streak including the Grade 1 Clark to close 2025, the Grade 3 Razorback to open this year and major scores in the Grade 1 Dubai World Cup (over Japanese star Forever Young) in March and the Grade 1 Stephen Foster (over Horse of the Year Sovereignty) June 28.
Spend enough time around Saratoga Race Course’s Oklahoma training track this summer and you’ll see Sovereignty. And sometimes you don’t even see him. You just know he’s there.
“Sovereignty is one of those horses that you can be watching yours at the quarter pole, and you can feel him coming behind your horse,” said trainer Steve Asmussen of the Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes and Jim Dandy winner. “You just find him for some stupid reason. You’ll turn your head and be like, ‘Yeah, it’s him.’ ”
Asmussen and his horse Magnitude will try not to see too much of the country’s top 3-year-old in the $1.25 million Travers Stakes at Saratoga today. The 2-1 second choice will need the race of his life against 2-5 Travers favorite Sovereignty, whose $5,147,800 in career earnings are more than quadruple that of his four foes combined.
Owned by Winchell Thoroughbreds, Magnitude is the logical spoiler – if one exists – as Sovereignty seeks his fourth consecutive win and third Grade 1 of 2025. As impressed as he is with Sovereignty, Asmussen will take his chances.
“There is no doubt of the quality of this year’s 3-year-old crop,” said the Hall of Famer. “It’s a very special group, and hopefully, they will all be around long enough to prove it. We’re Johnny Come Lately, basically. But all indications are go. I have nothing but respect for the 3-year-old crop and what they’ve proven so far . . . But we’re in the Magnitude camp, and he’s a talented horse that’s doing extremely well.”
How he got here takes some explaining.
The $450,000 Keeneland September yearling purchase impressed in his 2-year-old work last year and his people approached a June 6 debut at Churchill Downs with confidence.
“He showed a lot of talent early,” Asmussen said. “He was everybody’s favorite because of how easily he did what exercise we were going through. The first time we ran him, we couldn’t have been more disappointed than we were. If that’s our best one . . . no excuse. You know what I mean? He was a no-excuse fourth.”
Asmussen entered the bay colt in an Ellis Park maiden going 7 furlongs July 20. Magnitude won by 5 3/4 lengths with the trainer’s son Erik aboard. The win earned a try in the Grade 3 Iroquois at Churchill Downs in September. Again, the team came in with confidence.
“He responded really well to Erik,” said Asmussen. “Then we ran him back in the Iroquois expecting that again. We thought ‘OK, we’re through whatever that first race was,’ and for lack of a better term he, [laid an egg]. He had a great trip, was exactly where you wanted him to be and did not look good enough.”
Asmussen remembers thinking, “Are you kidding me? Here’s another one who isn’t who we thought he was.”
Seventh in the Iroquois, Magnitude didn’t run again for two months though he managed to frustrate his trainer in the morning. The horse would breeze with Tiztastic, whose 2024 ended with two graded-stakes placings. Magnitude went to first-level allowance company, winning at Churchill Downs in November, but got dusted by Built in December’s Gun Runner Stakes.
Those in-company breezes with Tiztastic impressed Asmussen, but he wasn’t the only one. The trainer would send videos of the Kentucky Derby-bound runner to representatives of co-owner Coolmore. They’d ask the same question, every time.
“Who did he work with?”
Asmussen, sarcasm font engaged, would reply, “The fastest horse I can’t win with.”
Magnitude opened 2025 with another dud, a sixth in the Grade 3 Lecomte on a sloppy track at Fair Grounds Jan. 18. Asmussen tried again in the Grade 2 Risen Star at Fair Grounds Feb. 15 and wasn’t leaving much to his horse, who drew the outside post in a field of 12 on a day where the opposite looked like the place to be. The trainer didn’t want another middling race and told jockey Ben Curtis to be aggressive with the 43-1 shot.
“He kicked him in the ass away from there and I remember thinking, ‘Look at this. This is who I want him to be,’ ” Asmussen said. “It wasn’t a soft group. They were rolling. And he literally ran them off their feet on a day where that’s the way the racetrack played.”
Magnitude cleared everyone, got to the rail and won by 9 3/4 lengths, laying waste to East Avenue, Chunk Of Gold, Built, American Promise and others.
“It couldn’t have felt better when he won the Risen Star,” Asmussen said. “On the day, I felt that it was a quality field of 3-year-olds. The way in which he did it was visually impressive. We walked around with our chests out.”
For about 12 hours.
Diagnosed with a bone chip in an ankle, Magnitude went from potential early Kentucky Derby favorite to a consult with Dr. Larry Bramlage in Kentucky.
“We could not believe that he had it,” Asmussen said. “We’ve seen him travel and stuff and how he trains. That horse doesn’t hurt himself. He did. Sometimes you’re 100 percent, then you aren’t. Strawberries – ripe today, rotten tomorrow.”
Magnitude had surgery to remove the chip, went to Becky Maker for rehab and got back to work as soon as he could. He breezed at Churchill Downs May 15 – three months to the day after the Risen Star. He progressed enough to make Asmussen ponder comeback races, and the trainer chose the Iowa Derby at Prairie Meadows July 5.
There was some method to looking west as Asmussen wanted a race to confirm the Risen Star form and a fitness boost to put a bigger test in play without taxing his horse.
“I wanted the validation that it doesn’t have to be the racetrack, or whatever,” he said. “It’s run at night in the summer, it’s not 100 degrees. You’re coming off the bench and you don’t want to just completely saturate him.”
Bet down to 3-5, Magnitude and Curtis led throughout, won by 9 1/4 lengths and earned a shot in the Travers against the best horse in the division. Nobody would draw up such a path, but Magnitude is where 3-year-olds are supposed to be in August.
“I wasn’t sure how much he’d get out of the Iowa Derby, but when he ran that fast off of that break, it confirmed things for us,” said Asmussen. “Summer racing, obviously, this is where we want to be. If you think about it from the point that you had a chip in your ankle off the Risen Star and you’re 2-1 in the Travers . . . it’s not ideal, but here we are.”
At about 8 a.m. Thursday, Magnitude was sacked out in his stall like an equine Rip Van Winkle. Asmussen started to show him to a visitor, but backed away quietly.
“That’s him,” he said. “He’s that good. Very cool horse. It’s an unbelievable opportunity. We feel fabulous 48 hours out. We’ve got our chance. Let’s see what we can do with it.”
For stories like this and more, read The Saratoga Special this summer.
