They had the Kentucky Derby favorite last year. Now they’re back with a long shot.

It was all there for Steve Asmussen and Ron Winchell one year ago.

A smooth trip on the First Saturday in May around the dirt surface at Churchill Downs in Louisville. A stretch run to surge past another key Kentucky Derby contender. A crowd of 147,294 roaring its approval, seemingly certain the race-time favorite had seen off all challengers and was striding toward immortality.

Then, it all fell apart.

The historic upset that unseated Epicenter’s bid for the 2022 Kentucky Derby title has been covered the world over, and with the tone that you’d expect.

Everybody loves the 80-1 long-shot winner. Nobody feels sorry for the beaten favorite.

Asmussen, Epicenter’s trainer, and Winchell, his owner, have been in the horse racing game long enough to expect this.

“I’ve always hated reading, hearing or listening to the opinions of the losers. I don’t ever want to add to it,” Asmussen said this week at Churchill Downs. “The winner won because he did everything you’re supposed to do to win the race. Give them their credit.”

But they’ve also been in the game long enough to know they could just as easily be on the other side of a surprising result in a sport that’s built its reputation on those occurrences.

So they’re back at the Kentucky Derby, again.

This time they bring Disarm with them: A son of Gun Runner who has only one win in five career starts, and was last seen finishing a distant third last month in the Lexington Stakes at Keeneland.

Disarm, who will leave from post No. 9 and held morning-line odds of 30-1, isn’t a favorite to win Kentucky Derby 149.

Not even close.

But to Asmussen, the Thoroughbred trainer with the most wins in North American history, and Winchell, whose family has spent decades chasing a Kentucky Derby win, Disarm represents something with immeasurable value:

The chance to win.

Kentucky Derby win is a missing piece for Asmussen, Winchell

Asmussen’s résumé as a Thoroughbred trainer is unmatched.

He holds the most wins in North American history (his first victory came in July 1986), and he’s tried to win the Run for the Roses on 24 occasions.

All have failed in this pursuit, with three agonizing second-place finishes along the way.

In 2011, Nehro battled Shackleford down the stretch, only for Animal Kingdom to comfortably surge past them both.

In 2017, Lookin At Lee was a non-threatening second behind Always Dreaming.

Then came the heartbreak with Epicenter last year, when he led with the finish line in sight, but couldn’t get there first.

“I will honestly say I have watched the Derby replay, multiple times, but I don’t think I’ve watched it once from when they left the gates to when they went under the wire,” said Asmussen, who compared re-watching last year’s Derby tape to a scary movie.

“That still hurts to watch it,” Winchell added this week from Churchill Downs. “Coming in last year with the favorite, thinking you’re going to win until the last 50 yards or whatever it was, that one was a little painful.”

While the disappointment can be chalked up to a personal, professional failure for Asmussen, it represented a generational disappointment for Winchell.

The Winchell Thoroughbreds racing and breeding operation was started by Ron’s father, Verne. Now, it’s a partnership between Ron and his mother, Joan.

Ron is also involved in other money-making ventures like gaming bars and restaurants, construction, and real estate development.

He’s also the owner of the Kentucky Downs turf track in Franklin.

But he’s spoken openly about how Verne chased a Kentucky Derby title for nearly five decades before his death in 2002, and how he took up that pursuit afterward, so far without any luck.

“The Derby is a race that I’ve been in a number of times now, and we’re here to win it, not just run in it,” Winchell said. “We’re crazy enough to think that we can actually win it with Disarm.”

Disarm enters 2023 Kentucky Derby unheralded, but with a chance

If you make the starting gate for the Kentucky Derby, you have a chance to win the race.

It’s an overly simplistic outlook, yet one that’s been proven correct.

And as part of a 2023 Derby field that has a clear favorite at the top, but plenty of lackluster horses elsewhere, Disarm can’t be discounted.

All five of Disarm’s previous starts have come at different tracks: Churchill Downs for his third-place debut in a maiden special weight race, Saratoga for his lone win in the same type of event, Oaklawn Park for a second-place trip in an allowance optional claiming race, Fair Grounds for his best showing in a second-place effort in the Louisiana Derby and Keeneland, where he finished third in the Lexington Stakes to squeak into the Derby field on qualifying points.

Winchell spoke this week about how everything was perfect in the lead up to Epicenter’s bid for the 2022 Derby, while little has gone right for Disarm on the road to this year’s race.

But Winchell said recent weeks following the Lexington Stakes have seen things come together for Disarm, whose final meaningful Derby preparation saw him work a half-mile in 49.2 seconds early Monday.

“I think it’s quite obvious that Disarm is an attractive horse with a lot of talent that people won’t disregard, but he has not run fast enough to win the Derby, for multiple reasons,” Asmussen added. “But can he put it all together?”

Things that are working in favor of Asmussen, Winchell and Disarm?

The horse has a Kentucky Derby-winning jockey aboard: The horse will be ridden by Joel Rosario, who has 11 previous starts in the Derby and won in 2013 with Orb.

Additionally, Disarm is a son of Gun Runner, another Asmussen-trained horse who won 12 of 19 career starts and was third in the 2016 Kentucky Derby before going on to win the 2017 Breeders’ Cup Classic.

“It is impossible not to notice the physical similarities between Disarm and Gun Runner,” Asmussen said.

For all that remains unknown about what will happen Saturday at 6:57 p.m., when post time hits for the 149th Kentucky Derby, it seems a certainty that Disarm, despite his connections, will not be among the race favorites.

Maybe that’s exactly what Asmussen and Winchell need.

“This year we’re coming in with Disarm, who is not the favorite,” Winchell said. “Maybe we’re learning from (last year). ‘OK, this is how you win the Derby.’ So I don’t know. Just trying to figure out how to win it, basically.”

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