Chip Honcho outran favored Liberty National and front runner Crown the Buckeye to win the $100,000 Gun Runner Stakes for 2-year-olds going 1 1/16 miles Dec. 20 at Fair Grounds.

It is fitting that the winner was trained by Steve Asmussen. It was Asmussen who trained 2017 Horse of the Year and eventual Hall of Famer Gun Runner, for whom the race is named. Asmussen has begun to pile up the victories in the race. He won the inaugural running of the Gun Runner in 2021 with Epicenter, added a second win with Track Phantom in 2023, and now has notched a third win with Chip Honcho.

Expected by many to establish the pace, Chip Honcho and winning jockey Paco Lopez instead sat second for much of the race as Crown the Buckeye, a dual stakes winner in Ohio-bred company, outsprinted him to the lead, setting quick fractions of :23.62, :46.66, and 1:10.98. Crown the Buckeye opened up a length advantage in mid-stretch, but was out of gas late, running his final sixteenth of a mile in :07.61.

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"At the sixteenth pole, I'm like, where's the wire? I needed it," said Crown the Buckeye's jockey Jareth Loveberry, who praised Crown the Buckeye's effort.

Chip Honcho was able to pass the leader. He hit the wire in 1:44.76 for 1 1/16 miles on a fast track and paid $9.80 to win.

Liberty National, who rallied up the inside from fifth in the field of six, caught Crown the Buckeye by a head for the place, three-quarters of a length behind the winner. He did not accelerate as quickly as in a maiden win last month at Churchill Downs, with jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. theorizing after the race that the colt might not have been as comfortable on the inside. Liberty National galloped out ahead of the rest of the field.

Crown the Buckeye held on for show ahead of Quality Mischief in fourth and Very Connected in fifth.

The first five finishers earned qualifying points on the Road to the Kentucky Derby presented by Woodford Reserve on a 10-5-3-2-1 basis.

The winner, a 2-year-old son of Connect owned by Leland Ackerley Racing, won for the second time in three starts. He had been a front-running winner over a mile at Churchill Downs in maiden special weight company Nov. 20 and a runner-up finisher on debut at Keeneland when racing seven furlongs Oct. 16.