You can be certain there were numerous horseplayers nationwide frantically trying to hit the “cancel bet” buttons on their advance-deposit wagering interfaces the moment that Magnitude (Not This Time) popped through the starting gate prematurely prior to Saturday's GI Stephen Foster Stakes. He remained in the hands of the assistant starter and didn't run off, and it only took about 40 seconds for the colt to get veterinary clearance and be reloaded.Conventional railbird wisdom has long established that breaking through the starting-stall doors is a negative betting angle because it can unnerve a Thoroughbred, and I'm sure that handicappers with deep enough databases are able to quantify just how much of a disadvantage that scenario represents.Magnitude, for his part, didn't know and didn't care. Off at 2.58-1 odds and making his first start in three months since winning the G1 Dubai World Cup, this Winchell Thoroughbreds-owned 4-year-old for trainer Steve Asmussen went straight to the front and established a comfortable cadence over the sloppy/sealed surface at Churchill Downs, maintaining a length-and-a-half margin through quarter-mile splits of :23.88, :23.50. :23.52 and :24.47.After swatting back a far-turn challenge from 2023 GI Breeders' Cup Classic winner White Abarrio (Race Day), Magnitude was chased home by 2025 GI Pennsylvania Derby winner Baeza (McKinzie), but he dug in and widened his winning margin to three lengths through a final furlong in :12.66. Sovereignty (Into Mischief), last year's Horse of the Year and GI Kentucky Derby champ, was four lengths farther back in third.Magnitude's final clocking of 1:48.03 for nine furlongs translated to a career-high 114 Beyer Speed Figure.The Aug. 7 GI Whitney Stakes at Saratoga Race Course is next, Asmussen said Sunday.Anecdotally, it's tough to come up with the last time a horse broke through the gate in a Grade I stakes and won. If you have a more robust data set (or a better memory) than me, please chime in via the comments section below.The only Grade I instance I can recall off the top of my head relates to the aforementioned Whitney, way back in 1981, when the race was run as a handicap.That was the year that Fio Rito, a strapping (17.1 hands, 1,300 pounds) New York-bred gray based at Finger Lakes, upset the Whitney at 10-1 odds after bursting through the gate pre-race and briefly running off.Here's how Steven Crist of the New York Times entertainingly described the unusual circumstances of that 1981 Whitney:“Fio Rito is not as sweet as his success. He is unpleasant and badly behaved, eager to take a bite out of anyone who gets too close,” Crist wrote. “To win today, Fio Rito had to overcome more than the disdain of the horsey set, which considers New York-breds akin to donkeys. Even before Fio Rito delayed the start of the Whitney by dragging an assistant starter through the stall doors, he barely made it to the gate.“Two days ago, it was less than even-money that Fio Rito would start. Wednesday night, he was sent here by van from Finger Lakes and was bedded down in Barn 36. But there was a filly in the next stall who perked his eager libido and he caused such a ruckus he was moved to another stall. Fio Rito was so upset by this forced separation that he dug a hole in the bottom of the dirt floor, uncovering a rock and bruising his left front foot.”After galloping the horse the day before the Whitney, trainer Michael Ferraro said Fio Rito was 50% likely to scratch. But on the morning of the race, the 6-year-old received a veterinarian's okay, and Fio Rito wired the Whitney field. He would retire later that season after compiling a stout 28-for-50 race record.Hymn | Coady MediaHymn in perfect pitch…If the up-and-coming 4-year-old Hymn (McKinzie) manages to make it to Saratoga this summer to try his luck against top-rated sprinters, he won't face the hormonal challenges that nearly derailed Fio Rito's trip to the Spa 45 years ago. That's because Hymn's connections opted to geld him back on Apr. 3 in an effort to turn around a career that started in February 2025 with a debut maiden victory followed by nine straight losses.Hymn has since won three consecutive six- and seven-furlong starts, rising through the allowance ranks at Oaklawn Park and Churchill before annexing Saturday's $175,000 DeFrancis Memorial Dash Stakes at Laurel Park by 5 1/4 lengths as the 17-10 favorite. His Beyer arc since being gelded is 95-92-99.“We were a little slow to geld him because he's so beautiful and we loved his family,” trainer Ron Moquett said. “We thought that if he ran like he looked, he had the potential to be something someone would breed to. It killed me to geld him, but I'd rather have a good gelding than a slow colt.”Hymn was bred and is owned by Fleur De Lis Stables, which races the gelding in partnership with William Sparks and Bret Jones after a $140,000 RNA at KEESEP.“From the moment he walked into our barn, you could tell he had something on his mind,” Moquett told the Laurel press office. “He was calling out to every female horse and pony he had ever seen since he was two years old.”0-for-11 and counting…Friday's opening-day card for Saratoga was drawn over the weekend, and per usual, 2-year-old fillies will contest the July 3 feature in the $200,000 Schuylerville Stakes.Morning-line odds had not been established at deadline for this column, but it's a good guess that Luminous Beauty (Flameaway), with a last-out win over the Saratoga surface and the race's top Beyer of 77, will vie for favoritism in the field of eight. She's owned in partnership by horseOlogy Racing, Fred Rosen, Steve Dervenis and Cliff Racing, and is trained by Jena Antonucci.But bettors beware: Faves in the Schuylerville have been blanked in every running since 2014.That's a little unusual for a stakes that annually draws light fields (no more than seven starters in five of the last six runnings).In six of the last 11 editions, Schuylerville favorites haven't even finished in the top three.Since 2020, the Schuylerville tote board has been lit up by bombs-away winners at odds as high as 44-1, 21-1 and 19-1.A bit of trivia: The last filly to win as the Schuylerville fave was Fashion Alert at 1-5 odds in 2014. She ran only two more times and never won again. But the rival who ran second to her in that Schuylerville, Take Charge Brandi at 5-1 odds, subsequently won three straight stakes, including the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, to close out her campaign as the division's Eclipse Award champion.The post Week in Review: Gate-Breakers, an Up-and-Coming Gelding, and the Curious Case of Schuylerville Faves appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.