Posts Tagged ‘d. wayne lukas’

By Ray Paulick
Todd Pletcher isn’t the only who had a big weekend last week, winning three American Graded Stakes races for 3-year-olds on Feb. 20: the Grade 2 Fasig-Tipton Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream Park with Eskendereya, the Grade 2 Risen Star Stakes at Fair Grounds with Discreetly Mine, and the Grade 3 El Camino Real Derby at Golden Gate Fields with Connemara.

Coolmore Ashford’s Giant’s Causeway sired two of the Pletcher-trained AGS winners, Eskendereya and Connemara, giving the 13-year-old Storm Cat stallion a total of three AGS winners thus far in 2010 (San Pasqual Handicap winner Neko Bay is the other one). For good measure, another top 3-year-old prospect by Giant’s Causeway, Northern Giant, finished a solid third for Pletcher’s mentor, Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, in the Risen Star. Only 16 days earlier, Northern Giant turned in a huge effort winning an Oaklawn Park maiden race by 11 1/4 lengths. He’s obviously a slow developing colt, the win coming in his sixth start.

On the strength of those AGS winners, Giant’s Causeway is atop the general sire list thus far in 2010 after being leading North American sire in 2009 for the first time since his first crop reached the racetrack in 2004. He was a truly outstanding racehorse and it’s no surprise that he’s developed into an elite sire. Giant’s Causeway has yet to sire his first American classic winner, but Eskendereya, who moved to the top of many Kentucky Derby lists with his Fountain of Youth victory, could easily change that.

With his weekend victories, trainer Pletcher now has won eight AGS races of 2010 with seven different horses. That’s 16% of the 50 AGS races run so far this year. Pletcher is on a brief “vacation” now, the result of a suspension stemming from a positive test at the 2008 Breeders’ Cup. His stable is deep in talent, is coming off a very strong 2009, and is ranked as the leading trainer by money won so far in 2010 (with reigning Eclipse Award winner Steven Asmussen in hot pursuit) while winning at a 27% clip. With Quality Road leading the way in the older male division, an incredibly deep roster of 3-year-old talent, and undoubtedly a talented group of 2-year-olds now going through early training, this could be a year to remember for Pletcher.

It could happen, judging from the results of Monday’s two Grade 1 races for 2-year-old colts, the Three Chimneys Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga won by the Lukas-trained Dublin, and the Del Mar Futurity won by the Baffert-trained Lookin at Lucky. Both colts turned in strong performances to win their respective races, and they each have the pedigree to continue as the races get longer. It’s a long, long way, however, from the first Monday in September to the first Saturday in May, and a lot can happen. But Lukas and Baffert each are well stocked with well-bred and talented 2-year-olds, and history shows they know what it takes to win the Kentucky Derby.

It would be great for this sport if these two Hall of Famers and now-fast friends do show up at Churchill Downs with the leading Derby contenders next spring. Lukas and Baffert have been the two most recognizable faces and best spokesmen for the game when the media and general public are paying attention—during the Triple Crown.

Seven Derbies have passed since Baffert last stood in the infield winner’s circle and it’s been 10 years for Lukas. They were synonymous with the race in the 1990s, when the sport and the industry at its foundation were going through better times. Neither Lukas nor Baffert is big enough or strong enough to save the sport on their own, but their success can help move it back into the spotlight.

It was hard to believe when reading David Grening’s Daily Racing Form recap of the Hopeful that Lukas has gone nearly four years without a Grade 1 victory—his last one coming with Folklore in the 2005 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Belmont Park. That’s a huge drop from the 1980s and early ‘90s when “D. Wayne off the plane” was winning Grade 1 races in bunches, from coast to coast. There were the 10 consecutive North American training titles by money won, from 1983-92, and four more from 1994-97. In 2008, Lukas finished 93rd by money won. Lukas also started a horse in 20 consecutive Kentucky Derbies, from 1981-2000, a total of 38 in all (and, yes, I know, and Wayne probably would admit that some of those horses didn’t belong). But he’s been without a starter in five of the last nine Derbies, a race he won four times between 1988 and 1999.

Some of Lukas’ most important owners, like Bob Lewis and W.T. Young, died, and some others moved on to different trainers.

Baffert hasn’t experienced quite as severe a drought, but he, too, has weathered some storms in recent years. Prince Ahmed Salman and Bob Lewis were important patrons of Baffert, and his stable suffered from their deaths. Like Lukas, Baffert also lost some owners to other trainers, but he’s had some loyal ones, too, like Lookin for Lucky’s owner Mike Pegram, who convinced Baffert to make the transition to Thoroughbreds. 

Baffert won the North American money title four consecutive years, from 1998-2001, but in three of the last four years (2005-08), he slipped out of the top 10. In six years, from 1996 (when Cavonnier fell a nose short of the Lukas-trained Grindstone, almost giving Baffert a Derby win as a rookie) to 2001, Baffert started 11 horses in the Derby. In the eight years since, he’s had just seven Derby starters. He’s won the Derby three times, with two seconds and two thirds.

While both came from the Quarter horse ranks, they were more rivals than friends in the 1990s when Baffert appeared on the Thoroughbred scene and threatened Lukas’ dominance over the sport. But as the years have passed and both men have mellowed, they’ve become good friends. Baffert even asked Lukas to introduce him at this year’s Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, something Lukas did with his usual flair.

Both are enjoying a revival in 2009. Baffert surged to third in the trainer money-won standings following an unforgettable Labor Day weekend at Del Mar that included three Grade 1 victories (Zensational in the Pat O’Brien, Richard’s Kid in the Pacific Classic, and Lookin at Lucky in the Del Mar Futurity—all for different owners). Lukas, though ranked 42nd by money won, is just getting his 2-year-olds going, and he has said he’s loaded, thanks to some new owners, including Legends Racing (which also has horses with Baffert and Nick Zito) and Scott Ford of Westrock Stable, along with some mainstays, including Dublin’s owners, William Mack and Robert Baker.

“This was my No. 1 pick in the sales,” Lukas said of Dublin (who was one of two Grade 1 winners at Saratoga over the weekend sold as yearlings by Gerry Dilger’s Dromoland, the other being Spinaway winner Hot Dixie Chick). “I still haven’t lost my eye in that part. I like to play in the main arena – these 2-year-olds, when they turn 3, that’s the name of the game.”

The boys—Lukas and Baffert–are back, and I think the game is better off because of it.

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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I yearn for Hollywood Park yesterday.

Times change, though I often wish they didn’t. The death knell for Hollywood Park came when Churchill Downs Inc. sold the track, three years ago last Tuesday to the Bay Meadows Land Co. Then CDI president Tom Meeker said California “has forsaken racing and its needs.” If things were grim for the sport in California then, how do you think it looks now, with Bay Meadows also bought and closed for development by the same Bay Meadows Land Co., and Golden Gate Fields and Santa Anita Park in the middle of owner Magna Entertainment’s bankruptcy proceedings.

But Hollywood Park yesterday was the place that solidified my love of the sport. My first racetrack experiences were in Chicago in the mid-1970s, but it wasn’t until I moved to Southern California in the spring of 1979 that I got to see the best of what racing offered.

That was the year Affirmed carried 132 pounds to victory in the Gold Cup, covering the mile and a quarter in an incredible 1:58 2/5 while pushed the whole way by the Italian champion Sirlad. It was the year a hotshot California-bred named Flying Paster, winner of the Hollywood Derby, would carry the hopes of West Coast racing fans to the Kentucky Derby, where he would be crushed by Spectacular Bid, a colt who would come West a year later and continue to dominate that same rival.

Legends like Shoemaker, Pincay, McCarron, Hawley, and McHargue populated the jockeys room, Trainer Charlie Whittingham dominated the big races, and the stands were packed to the gills every weekend. Little did I know then that the 24,930 average daily attendance from the 77-day meeting of 1979 was down considerably from just a few years earlier, when Hollywood averaged over 30,000. Santa Anita Park was getting the upper hand under the marketing innovations of Alan Balch.

Not to be outdone, track owner Marje Everett pulled out all the stops in 1980 to reverse the “sagging” business figures. On Sunday, May 4, 1980, the day after Genuine Risk beat the California-bred Rumbo in the Kentucky Derby, Hollywood Park tried something new–a “giveaway” for every paid admission, of a canvas tote bag. 

I was one of the 80,348 on hand that day, though I didn’t even know about the tote bag giveaway. I had come to see the ongoing rivalry between ex-claimer Wishing Well (who went on to produce Horse of the Year Sunday Silence) and Country Queen in the Gamely Handicap. I’ll never forget the traffic jam on Century Boulevard trying to get into Hollywood Park that day, or the lines for concessions and betting. I managed to snag one of the tote bags, and, somehow, 29 years later I still have it. Though it’s a bit the worse for wear, the bag is a reminder for me of the glory days of the sport.

That same year, Hollywood Park introduced Pick Six wagering (they even gave away a Pick Six beach towel in the image of a $100 bill….signed by “Secretary of the Treasury Vernon O. Underwood”) , and the racing was highlighted by incredible performances from Spectacular Bid in the Mervyn LeRoy and Californian Stakes (I kept my free “Bid and The Shoe” T-shirt for years until it mysteriously shrunk and no longer fit me). Average attendance soared to 31,150 in 1980.

Hollywood Park is where I stood in awe alongside my friend and former Daily Racing Form colleague Jay Hovdey, watching a 2-year-old daughter of Seattle Slew, named Landaluce, power her way to victory in the 1982 Lassie Stakes, a race since renamed in her honor. She drew off down the stretch of the six-furlong event to win by an implausible 21 lengths, covering the distance in 1:08 flat for an up-and-coming trainer named D. Wayne Lukas. It’s the track where the first Breeders’ Cup was held in 1984, when Everett pulled a few favors with her Hollywood pals and made it a star-studded event for people and horses. It’s been a huge part of racing history since its opening in 1938. Click here for a trip through Hollywood Park’s history in the introduction to the track’s media guide.

I could go on with the memories of this track, just as I could listen all day long to the deadly accurate and gravelly voiced race calls of the late Harry Henson. It’s not the same as it used to be—few places are—and since moving to Kentucky in 1988 I don’t get there as often as I’d like to.

I loved Hollywood Park, its horses, its people and its energy, but mostly for how it made me feel about racing.

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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Todd Pletcher is almost a cinch to be elected into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame as soon as he becomes eligible for nomination on the ballot. The one-time D. Wayne Lukas assistant has won four Eclipse Awards as outstanding trainer in North America (2003-2007), set records for earnings by a North American trainer and won meeting titles at more than a half dozen tracks in Florida, Kentucky and New York. He once trained 100 stakes winners in a single season.

To that end, turf writer Nick Kling of the Troy Record, wrote about Pletcher’s recent Triple Crown tailspin in a piece that appeared only in the upstate New  York’s May 19 print edition. With the paper’s permission, we are republishing Kling’s commentary online. – Ray Paulick
 
By Nick Kling

When Take The Points finished last in Saturday’s Preakness Stakes, his performance was the latest page in an incredible story being written by Todd Pletcher.

Pletcher is considered to be one of the most accomplished Thoroughbred trainers in the nation.  He is held in such high esteem that he was voted Eclipse Awards as America’s outstanding trainer four years in succession (2004-2007).

Todd has been at his best at Saratoga Race Course, winning six training titles at the prestigious meet.  In 2007 Pletcher trained three Eclipse-winning horses: Rags to Riches (3-year-old filly), Lawyer Ron (older male), and English Channel (turf male).

However, there is one area where Pletcher has not been so successful.  His horses have been awful in Triple Crown races: the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes.  The record of futility from Pletcher-trained starters in these classic events may be unparalleled.

Over the eleven most recent Triple Crown races, beginning with the 2006 Kentucky Derby, Pletcher-trained horses have finished last four times.  That is a negative batting average of 36 percent. 

In reality, it is worse than that.  He had starters in only nine of those races.  That raises Pletcher’s absolutely last quotient to 44 percent.

Harness announcer Jack E. Lee used to say the trailing horse in a race could, "see them all."  The Pletcher Triple Crown starters since 2006 who could see them all at the finish line were Keyed Entry (2006 Derby), Cowtown Cat (2007 Derby), Monba (2008) Derby, and Take The Points (2009 Preakness).

In addition, Pletcher’s 2005 Kentucky Derby starter Bandini finished 19th of 20 in that field.  2004 Belmont Stakes starter Purge finished dead last of nine starters.  2001 Belmont entrant Balto Star finished eighth of nine.

According to KentuckyDerby.com, Pletcher has started 24 horses in America’s greatest race.  21 have finished out of the money.  Todd’s best Derby results have been a pair of seconds and one third.

Only D. Wayne Lukas has had more Derby starters (43) than Pletcher.  Lukas, one of Pletcher’s mentors, has won the race four times.  Trainer H.J. Thompson had 24 Derby entrants and four winners.  Trainers Sylvester Veitch and Ron McAnally, who had 10 Derby starters, are the only other horsemen with double-digit entrants without a Kentucky Derby victory.

Using Daily Racing Form’s Formulator past performance program, I was able to find two Preakness entrants from the Pletcher barn.  One was Take The Points.  The other was Circular Quay, who finished fifth in 2007.

Pletcher’s only victory in a Triple Crown race came when Rags to Riches won the 2007 Belmont Stakes, beating subsequent Horse of the Year Curlin.  Preparing a filly to accomplish that task was an outstanding feat of training, making Pletcher’s overall lack of success more incomprehensible.

Overall, he has had eight Belmont Stakes starters, four unplaced finishers, and three besides Rags to Riches in the money.

The Breeders’ Cup is the only other event which compares to Triple Crown races in stature.  Pletcher’s relative accomplishments in Cup races is better, although not great.

According to the Breeders’ Cup website, Todd has had 55 Cup starters.  They have produced three wins, six seconds, and seven thirds.  Pletcher Cup starters have earned approximately $8 million in purse money, placing him in the top six among all trainers.

Horsemen such as Bobby Frankel and Bill Mott, Hall of Famers both, have Breeders’ Cup records in line with Pletcher’s Cup performance.

Trying to deduce what causes Todd’s Triple Crown flame-out is an exercise in speculation.  My best guess would point to two causes.

Many of the colts in the Pletcher barn are horses bred for speed.  Speed wins a lot of races, but not necessarily those at classic distances.  Several have sires cut in the mold of Distorted Humor and Elusive Quality, middle distances types who have produced Derby winners nevertheless. 

However, Pletcher’s high profile owners generally spend a lot of money on their stock and expect a return.  Pletcher is among the top trainers in the country in terms of number of juvenile starters.  Horses which break their maiden sprinting at five or six furlongs and win two-year-old stakes races at the Churchill Downs and Saratoga summer meets are unlikely to be the same animals winning Triple Crown events.

In addition, some horses from the Pletcher stable appear to have been ambitiously-spotted in Triple Crown races.  A review of their past performances reveals some horses which have done most of their racing on synthetic surfaces.  Others have mediocre dirt form, or have not done particularly well at longer route distances.

Make no mistake.  Derby fever is an affliction which strikes many owners and trainers in spring.  If that plays any part in the decisions made about Pletcher-trained horses, they are in good company.

There are some signs horsemen are beginning to rethink the idea of shoving any remotely talented three-year-old into Triple Crown races.  Take The Points, for example, had earnings which qualified him for the Derby.  His connections chose to wait for the Preakness.

Horsemen used to say Thoroughbreds were like strawberries — they could spoil overnight.  It’s only gotten worse.  Many young horses in the 21st Century have the shelf life of raw oysters.  If they are put where they don’t belong, someone might get sick.

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By Ray Paulick

Oaklawn Park owner Charles Cella has always been something of a contrarian, so it should really not be that big a surprise that his Hot Springs, Ark., track’s business is running contrary to national trends this year. Attendance and handle are down at most tracks, with overall betting in the United States down 6.7% for the first two months of the year. But not at Oaklawn Park.

Both attendance and handle are up for the first half of the Oaklawn meeting, leading to a purse increase that was announced last week. At the midway point of the Oaklawn season, on-track attendance is 279,189 this year compared with 269,797 in 2008, a 3% percent increase. On-track handle is also up 3%. Its exported simulcast signal has grown by 6% from 2008.

“Numbers from the first half of our season are surprisingly good,” Oaklawn president Charles J. Cella said in a press release, “especially when you consider the current economy.”

Terry Wallace the voice of Oaklawn for 35 years and the head of the media relations department, said there are several reasons the track is bucking the national trend. “We didn’t have reason to expect that we’d be up,” Wallace said. “But we’ve had cooperative weather, and I don’t think our part of the country has had the dramatic rises and falls in the economy that a lot of people in other regions have had.”

Wallace said field size is another reason business has grown, especially Oaklawn’s simulcast signal. Average number of starters at the midway point of the season is 9.86, a 5% increase over the same period last year, when average field size at this time was 9.36.

“We haven’t had many off tracks this year, either,” he said, “and the track has been playing very fair with no biases. Big fields and a consistent racetrack is what people are looking for. The Instant Racing machines have been very popular here, too; they’ve been a great success for us, and we’ve seen a significant jump in handle on that this year.

“And it doesn’t hurt to have really good horses here like Old Fashioned and Proud Spell,” he added. Proud Spell, last year’s champion 3-year-old filly lost her 2009 debut Thursday, and leading Kentucky Derby candidate Old Fashioned goes in Saturday’s Rebel Stakes.

Finally, Wallace said, Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, who is based at Oaklawn for the third consecutive year, has been a tremendous public relations asset.

“Wayne Lukas has been incredible,” he said. “He mixes with the crowd, both in the track grandstand and in the gaming area. People here have learned to really like him. As a result, he’s a hero around here. He’s a rock star.”

Lukas gave a motivational talk to a group in Hot Springs a couple of days before the meeting opened, Wallace said.

“He said you can never overestimate the value of kindness, and he’s showing a lot of kindness to our fans. He’s got a new thing he’s doing, and it’s become really popular. When he wins a race, he randomly finds a young person in the crowd and asks if they’d like to have their picture taken in the winner’s circle. He’ll invite the whole family down there if they want to come. And if the family wants a copy of the picture he’ll get one for them and autograph it. He has been so good to the people here. It’s been really amazing.”

Lukas is currently fourth in the trainer standings with 11 wins.

The meeting continues through April 11, with the $1-million Arkansas Derby, which has been a key Kentucky Derby prep in recent years.

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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By Ray Paulick

In the winter and spring of 1980, as a relatively new racing fan living in Southern California I was confident that I had discovered the certain winner of that year’s Kentucky Derby: a colt named Rumbo, who had a few mental quirks but possessed a powerful stretch run.

Rumbo finished second in the Santa Anita Derby and Hollywood Derbies, but I was convinced the extra furlong of the Kentucky Derby would be all this colt would need to get the job done and confirm my brilliance as a handicapper. Besides, Codex, the winner of the two Derbies in Southern California who was trained by a new hotshot from the Quarter horse world named D. Wayne Lukas, wouldn’t be in the starting gate at Churchill Downs come the first Saturday in May. His connections didn’t think to nominate him to the Derby, and there were no supplemental entries to the race back then.

The field for that year’s Run for the Roses didn’t seem particularly strong, especially in comparison to the decade that had just ended, one that produced Triple Crown winners Secretariat, Seattle Slew and Affirmed, along with Spectacular Bid, who in my opinion should have won the Triple Crown in 1979.

Rockhill Native was the tepid Derby favorite and reigning 2-year-old champion, but just didn’t strike me as a real Derby horse. Besides, he was a gelding, and no gelding had won America’s great horserace since Clyde Van Dusen in 1929. Second choice was Plugged Nickle, winner of the Florida Derby and Wood Memorial. It just didn’t seem right to me that a horse with that name (and misspelled at that) could join the ranks of Kentucky Derby winners.

In fact, the biggest threat I saw to Rumbo was another California colt, but this one had a girl’s name, Jaklin Klugman, the sorta namesake of actor Jack Klugman.

Oh, yes, there was a real filly in that race, too, Genuine Risk, but I hardly gave her a second thought. Fillies couldn’t win the Derby. That hadn’t happened since Regret in 1915, and no filly had even tried to beat the boys since Silver Spoon finished fifth to Tomy Lee in 1959. The image of the tragic injury to the great filly Ruffian in her match race only a few years earlier against Derby winner Foolish Pleasure was still fresh in my mind. Trainer LeRoy Jolley had already tried Genuine Risk against colts, finishing third to Plugged Nickle and Colonel Moran in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct in New York. Though it was her first career defeat after six consecutive wins, I couldn’t see Genuine Risk improving off that effort.

Besides, I was certain she’d be helpless against the mighty Rumbo down the long stretch of Churchill Downs.

That wasn’t the first time I was wrong about a horse race, and it certainly wasn’t (nor will be) the last.

Rumbo, under Laffit Pincay Jr., dropped back to trail the 13-horse field, just as I expected him to do, but he came with a strong rally around the final turn. He flew by the dueling pace-setters, Rockhill Native and Plugged Nickle and caught Jaklin Klugman inside the furlong pole. But there was nothing he could do about the filly. Jacinto Vasquez deftly guided her through early traffic, moved to the lead before reaching the top of the stretch, then easily held off Rumbo to win by a length as a 13-1 long shot.

 My only consolation to being wrong was that it took an historic achievement to beat me. But my appreciation for Genuine Risk was just beginning.

Two weeks later, in the Preakness Stakes at Baltimore, Genuine Risk proved that her Derby win was no fluke. Codex, benefitting from his owner’s forgetfulness to nominate him to the first leg of the Triple Crown, was a fresh horse. On his back that day was Angel Cordero Jr., a sometimes controversial jockey who could have written a book about the tactics of race riding. The duo got the jump on Genuine Risk, stalking the early leaders and taking command on the turn for home, just as Vasquez had done on the filly in the Derby.

But as Genuine Risk launched her move on the turn for home, Cordero peeked back over his right shoulder and saw the filly coming. He allowed Codex to drift far off the rail and almost directly into the path of Genuine Risk, then flashed the whip in his right hand as the two horses brushed together at the top of the stretch. It was a move clearly intended to intimidate the filly, and it worked. Vasquez later said Cordero hit Genuine Risk in the head with his whip and did it on purpose.

Codex went on to win by 4 ¾ lengths, with Genuine Risk second. A claim of foul was dismissed by track stewards, as was an appeal to the Maryland Racing Commission by Bert and Diana Firestone, the owners of Genuine Risk. Many fans of the filly felt cheated.

Flash ahead to 2008 and ask yourself, how many owners today would persevere and run a Kentucky Derby-winning filly in the Belmont Stakes after two hard races at Churchill Downs and Pimlico, one who had no hope of becoming a Triple Crown winner? It’s hard to imagine anyone would be that sporting. The Firestones were.

But Genuine Risk was no ordinary filly. She ran back three weeks later in the Belmont in a rematch against Codex, who was made the 8-5 favorite. Rumbo, who had skipped the Preakness, was there, too, as the second choice in the betting. The fans had virtually given up on Genuine Risk, who was sent off at odds of 9-1.

Genuine Risk ran gamely over the mile and a half of the Belmont, battling Rockhill Native much of the way over a muddy racetrack. She put that foe away at the top of the stretch, but couldn’t hold off Temperence Hill, a 53-1 outsider who hadn’t contested either of the two prior Triple Crown events and was the only horse in the field wearing mud calks. Codex and Rumbo were non-factors. Genuine Risk finished a gallant second, securing her place as the greatest filly ever to compete in all three Triple Crown races.

This Kentucky-bred filly by Exclusive Native out of the Gallant Man mare Virtuous wasn’t finished yet. After a short break, she came back to narrowly lose the Maskette to Bold ‘n Determined,  then won the Ruffian Handicap by a nose over Misty Gallore and It’s in the Air. It was a great year for fillies, one that also included Davona Dale and Love Sign.

But none was greater than Genuine Risk, who was made that year’s 3-year-old champion and was a first-ballot inductee in the Hall of Fame.

Genuine Risk never duplicated her racing performances as a broodmare before her death this week at the age of 31. Her fertility difficulties were a frustration to all. The expectations placed on great fillies by the public somehow don’t seem fair anyways.

Genuine Risk did more than enough in that five-week stretch in the spring of 1980 to secure her place in history.

VIDEO: Kentucky Derby, Preakness, Belmont

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