Zipse: Red Route One has earned title of America’s horse

Whether they have earned the title or not, the Dallas Cowboys are known as America’s team. There may be more reason to call Red Route One America’s horse.

Sounds silly, right? Hear me out.

Racing in the U.S. needs more horses like Red Route One. He by no means excites the senses, but the stretch-running 4-year-old colt by Gun Runner shows up and runs.

The horses who do excite the senses tend not to stick around. He is the anti-Flightline or Justify. Those two talents were ushered off to the breeding shed all too soon after lighting up a few American racetracks, but Red Route One keeps plodding on.

Case in point, Saturday night in Altoona, Iowa. You cannot get much more removed from the coastal kings New York and Los Angeles, but a place like Prairie Meadows, in many ways, is America.

Not surprisingly, it was the well-travelled Red Route One who got the job done in the track’s richest race of the year, the Grade 3 Prairie Meadows Cornhusker Handicap.

While much of the nation was still listening to the surplus of holiday fireworks, the race highweight went back to work, uncorking an irresistible late run which carried him from eighth early to a half-length victory over his long-shot stablemate Unload.

The second choice in the field of 10, Red Route One completed the nine furlongs over a fast track in 1:49.62. Trained by Steve Asmussen and ridden by Cristian Torres, it was his fifth win in 21 career starts.

Bred in Kentucky, Red Route One is out of the Tapit mare Red House and is a homebred for Winchell Thoroughbreds. The Cornhusker tally was his third graded-stakes victory, joining the 2023 West Virginia Derby (G2) and the 2024 New Orleans Classic (G2), for the chestnut colt.

His winning percentage of 24 percent is less than sexy, but who wouldn’t want to own a horse like this? He dances every dance, and he tries hard.

A four-time stakes winner overall, Red Route One has finished in the top four in 15 stakes races across the country.

As the economics of breeding have far surpassed those of racing in our sport, I wonder how much a horse such as Red Route One would even appeal to the industry.

He does not win by open lengths, and he has no speed. But his pedigree is topnotch, and he certainly has proven his durability in the last three seasons.

In compiling over $1.8 million in earnings, Red Route One has run 21 times in just under 24 months since finishing fifth at Saratoga in his career debut.

Since competing in two-thirds of last year’s Triple Crown, he already has run 10 times at eight racetracks in eight states.

Although his marketability as a future stallion remains a question for another day, I will continue to follow his robust racing career with interest and admiration.

Red Route One as America’s Horse? He would be a fitting choice, in my humble opinion.