King Fury, named after superstar boxer Tyson Fury, collared odds-on 4-5 favorite Super Stock inside the final furlong and grinded his way to a half-length victory in Sunday's eighth running of the $98,000 Street Sense Overnight Stakes on opening day of Churchill Downs' 24-day Fall Meet.
“This is a Kentucky Derby-type horse,” winning trainer Kenny McPeek said. “We may look at the (Nov. 6) Breeders' Cup Juvenile but more than likely just wait for the (Nov. 28) Kentucky Jockey Club. The future is very bright for a horse like this.”
Brian Hernandez Jr. rode the well-bred 2-year-old colt for McPeek and owners Fern Circle Stables (Paul Fireman) and Three Chimneys Farm LLC (Goncalo Torrealba). The son of 2007-08 Horse of the Year Curlin ran 1 1/16 miles over a fast track in 1:44.30.
Purchased for $950,000 at Fasig-Tipton's 2019 Saratoga Sale, King Fury is the first foal out of six-time stakes winner and 2016 Humana Distaff (Grade I) hero Taris.
Breaking from post No. 4 in the field of six juveniles, King Fury rated just behind Franz Josef and Super Stock as the leader rattled off comfortable early quarter-mile clips of :24.60, :49.51 and 1:14.34. King Fury circled three-wide around the final turn as Super Stock took over leaving the final turn. The chestnut colt with a big white blaze found his best running in deep stretch and held off Super Stock as the two battled on determinedly to the wire. A half-length separated the top two at the finish and it was another 3 ¾ lengths back to third-place finisher Oncoming Train.
King Fury, who earned $59,835 for the win and improved his record to 3-2-0-0—$116,979, paid $7.40, $3.40 and $3 as the 5-2 second betting choice. Super Stock, ridden by Ricardo Santana Jr., returned $2.80 and $2.40. Oncoming Train, with Rafael Bejarano up, paid $3.
Arabian Prince finished fourth and was followed by Franz Josef and Crime Spree. Eucharist was scratched.
King Fury, bred in Kentucky by Heider Family Stables, broke his maiden by 2 ¾ lengths in his career debut on Sept. 3 at Churchill Downs, but subsequently finished eighth one month later after racing four-wide throughout in the $400,000 Breeders' Futurity (GI) at Keeneland.
“His last race at Keeneland was pretty puzzling because we thought he'd run a lot better than he did,” McPeek said. “I think the track ended up being pretty forward that day and his trip didn't really help things.”
Should McPeek bypass the Breeders' Cup Juvenile which comes 12 days after the Street Sense, King Fury could vie for favoritism in the $200,000 Kentucky Jockey Club (GII), a 1 1/16-mile race for 2-year-olds at Churchill Downs on Saturday, Nov. 28. The Kentucky Jockey Club is part of the “Road to the Kentucky Derby” point series that will determine the field of 20 horses that will compete in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (GI) at Churchill Downs on Saturday, May 1.
The Street Sense is named in honor of 2007 Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense who became the first horse to win the Breeders' Cup Juvenile (GI) as a 2-year-old and the Run for the Roses at age 3. He also was the first Champion Two-Year-Old Colt to win the Kentucky Derby since Spectacular Bid who won the Kentucky Derby in 1979.
Each of Sunday's races was for 2-year-olds, and Sunday marked the first time spectators watched live racing at Churchill Downs since Dec. 1, 2019, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. A limited attendance of 1,534 was on-hand with proper social distancing as Churchill Downs followed the COVID-19 health and safety protocols for Venues and Events as mandated by the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Racing continues every Wednesday-Sunday at 1 p.m. ET through Sunday, Nov. 29.
Blue Grass Stakes winner Art Collector breezed four furlongs in 49 1/5 seconds at the Skylight Training Center on Thursday, his first major move since finishing fourth in the Oct. 3 Preakness Stakes. Trainer Tommy Drury told drf.com that the 3-year-old son of Bernardini is under consideration for the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile on Nov. 7 at Keeneland.
Regular rider, Brian Hernandez, Jr., was aboard Art Collector for Thursday's workout.
“They say the track's been pretty heavy, but he still got his last eighth in 11 and 2,” Hernandez told drf.com. “He's as good as ever, from what I can tell.”
Tommy Drury, Jr. had never won a graded stakes race until Bruce Lunsford's Art Collector captured Keeneland's Toyota Blue Grass (G2) less than three months ago. But he'd certainly played a role in the training process for a lot of graded-stakes winners.
Now, after more than 30 years in the trenches and behind the scenes, Drury is embarking on his Triple Crown debut with Art Collector in Saturday's Preakness Stakes (G1) at Pimlico. His sudden burst into racing's spotlight follows decades of paying his dues, both with horses at the top of the game and low-level claimers. Drury's own racing stable consisted mostly of the claimers and horses likely to race at smaller tracks in the region. Any stakes horses or well-bred 2-year-olds likely were being prepared for other trainers.
“I always joked with everybody, 'Eventually one of these horses is going to fall through the cracks,' ” Drury said. “We've kind of been patiently waiting, and that's exactly what happened with Art Collector. The stars aligned for us and it just worked out.”
The 49-year-old Drury represents the thousands of men and women in this country and the world who work seven days a week with horses and never get a chance in the spotlight. On the racetrack, it's known as waiting for the big horse to come in.
Of all things, the health pandemic put the big horse in Drury's life.
Lunsford planned to make a training change when he sent Art Collector to Drury in January to get ready off a layoff. But with the intended trainer, Rusty Arnold, stuck down in Florida for a couple more months in the wake of the COVID outbreak, Art Collector ran with Drury officially his trainer for the first time on May 17 at Churchill Downs. He won by 2 3/4 lengths.
Drury assumed Art Collector would be leaving his barn. But Lunsford — and Arnold — had decided that Drury deserved to keep the colt. That was also the conclusion of Seth Hancock, the head of Claiborne Farm, which long has boarded Lunsford's mares and stands the owner's Grade 1 winner First Samurai at stud. Claiborne also has had horses with Drury.
“I sent Bruce a text and said, 'We're never going to know if he's a good trainer if we don't give him a chance,'” Hancock said of Drury. “Bruce was going to leave him with him anyway, and the rest is history…. And I admire the heck out of Rusty because I think he sent Bruce a text and said, 'You know, that horse ran too good for Tommy Drury. Don't move him to me.' Boy, that's something that doesn't happen anymore.”
Art Collector is Drury's first real shot at the big time, and, so far, he's handled things flawlessly. The son of 2006 Preakness Stakes winner Bernardini is 4-for-4 in his care, winning two Churchill Downs allowance races, the Blue Grass and then the $200,000 RUNHAPPY Ellis Park Derby — all by open lengths and in fast times.
When Art Collector nicked the fleshy part of his left front heel during a routine gallop the day before entries for the Kentucky Derby, Drury did not hesitate to take the colt out of the race. Never mind how big it would have been for Lunsford and him to have their first Derby starter at their hometown track. If he couldn't be 100 percent, Drury didn't want to run. The focus immediately turned to the Preakness.
“I admire what he did before the Derby,” Hancock said. “He could have patched him up, got him over… that's why I like the guy. He always does the right thing by the horse.”
Brian Hernandez Jr., who rides Art Collector, knows what a single horse can do for a career — as Fort Larned did in carrying the jockey to victory in the 2012 Breeders' Cup Classic (G1).
“It's huge for Tommy,” said Hernandez, the trainer's close friend. “I think that's been the best thing about this whole deal, all the press and everything he's getting. People are finally starting to see that, hey, he can get a good horse to the right races. He's done a great job for his whole career training. Now it's gotten to the next level, and that's what you need. It just took the right horse for everybody to see it. And it will be good for him in the long run as well. His stock will get better, and hopefully it will snowball for him.”
Two understated labels of honor in horse racing are calling someone a “horseman” and “a worker.” Drury, by all accounts, is both.
Patty Drury had her only child when she was 16. Thomas Drury Sr. was an exercise rider who generally trained a cheap horse, two or three on the side. Patty Drury can't remember a time when her son didn't want to train horses, at least once he realized his dream of being a jockey wasn't going to happen.
“Tommy is the only person I have ever met who has always known what he wanted to do and has worked toward that without ever changing,” she said. “Tommy has always, always wanted to work with the horses. It's the love of the horses. When he was born, we lived on a horse farm so he's been around horses his entire life.
“He's been telling me since he was about 9 that he was going to have a horse in the Derby some day. As I watched him grow, it seemed like he found his spot in racing. It didn't look like it would really lead to the Derby, but he was making a really good living. Gosh, I'm his mom. If he wins any race, I'm excited. It might as well be the Derby for me if Tommy is in the winner's circle.
“The way he's just stuck to it and built his business, it stays in the back of your mind that, yeah, he could just make this happen. Getting one into the Preakness is every bit just as good. It's not at home, but it's just as fantastic… It's just exciting, unbelievable. I don't even know the words, to be honest. I love it. I love each interview. Maybe it was Mr. Lunsford who said Tommy is the best-kept secret around the racetrack. I have to agree with that.”
Drury attended Marion C. Moore High School near the southern Louisville suburb of Okolona, an area best known in the sports world for producing star quarterback Phil Simms. Okolona is about 14 miles from Churchill Downs, but Drury found a way to get to the track on weekends. He quit school over Patty's objections, telling his mom that they couldn't teach him what he needed to learn.
Drury later earned his GED, but in the meantime, his education moved to Skylight Training Center in Oldham County, east of Louisville and where his dad was working.
“It seemed like he always had something that had been turned out for a year,” Drury said of his father's stock. “There was always something. You couldn't gallop it; it would run off. You don't think about it at the time but now, looking back, I got a lot of education from those horses. It certainly wasn't uncommon to walk into his barn and there would be three horses and two would be standing in ice tubs. Those kinds of horses, they make you a horseman.”
At the same time, Drury Sr. preached to the teenage Tommy, “If you're going to do this, you need to work for the bigger outfits.”
Drury officially began as an exercise rider at age 17 and got his trainer's license at 18. Like his dad, he also worked for other trainers — Frankie Brothers, Bill Mott, Brian Mayberry, a short time for D. Wayne Lukas and Steve Penrod.
“I was kind of like my dad for the next 10 years,” said Drury. “I'd always have a horse, a couple of horses, and galloped on the side. You could just pay attention to how those guys did things, and I started to incorporate some of that into my program.”
Still, he said, “I never thought in a million years I'd be in this situation….
Yeah, there were a lot of days where I drove back from Beulah Park after the last race, had a four-hour drive home and we beat one horse in a 'non-winners of two' for $3,500. It wasn't like I just showed up and got these kinds. There were a whole lot of years getting to this point. It's certainly not something I'm ever going to take for granted.”
A career break came in the unlikely form of Drury being turned down for stalls at Churchill Downs. Drury and his tiny stable returned to the Skylight training center. But rather than being banished, it proved an opportunity, with Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott sending him a few overflow horses.
“That's when guys started giving me the opportunity to leg up young horses and things of that nature, guys I'd galloped for,” Drury said. “Bill put me on the map. He gave me an opportunity when no one else would, sent me a couple of horses. You tell people for years, this is what I do, this is what I want to do. And nobody really pays much attention. Then all of a sudden you're able to say, 'Hey I've got horses for Bill Mott', and suddenly you have the credibility you need to get going. That's helped me expand. Whether it's Bill or Frankie, Ralph Nicks, Al Stall. All these guys have been such lifelines.
“One of the things I learned from Bill was that you might not be where you want to be today, but with a little patience and time, six months from now you might be exactly where you want to be.”
Horses such as current top older horse Tom's d'Etat, 2011 Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner and 2-year-old champion Hansen and Grade 1 winners Lea and Madcap Escape were all in Drury's care at some stage. The Frank Brothers-trained Madcap Escape, who earned $1 million while going 7 for 9, was one of his first horses for Lunsford.
“He's had his hands on quite a few good horses. He just never had the opportunity” to keep them, Hancock said. “And he's getting that opportunity with Art Collector and making the most of it.”
Today, Drury's operation has about 50 horses at Skylight and 10 at Churchill Downs. His business is about evenly split between his own racing stable and preparing 2-year-olds to race and older horses to make a return to the races for other trainers.
“I've watched him very closely, and I came to the conclusion that if you look at Mott, Frankie and Shug (McGaughey) — all of whom I'm close to — they started as claiming trainers and small guys building their thing,” Lunsford said. “As they did, they did a lot more direct work on horses. So when they got to the better horses, they knew how to get them through injuries and how to do things. Tommy does, too. He had the same kind of background.”
For Drury, it was like winning the Breeders' Cup Classic when Claiborne Farm's 6-year-old gelding Departing – a five-time stakes-winner and $1.9 million-earner who ran in the 2013 Preakness for trainer Al Stall – won a $100,000 stakes at Indiana Grand in his first start for Drury in 2016.
“Can't believe I just won the biggest race of my career, and doing it for Claiborne Farm just makes it that much more special!” Drury wrote on Facebook. The trophy, which he strapped behind the seatbelt, rode shotgun on the drive back.
Departing was second in his next start, coming out with an ankle problem. As much as Drury wanted the gelding to get to $2 million, just because he thought the horse deserved it, he told Hancock he thought it best that Departing be retired.
“Tommy said, 'You know, given who he is, I don't want to try to patch him up and go on. I think it's best we stop on him,'” Hancock said. “That was the right thing to do. Every horse we ever had with Tommy, whatever he would tell me, in my mind it was always the right thing to do. I thought, 'Well, this guy is sure enough all right.' I just became really fond of him, not only as a trainer but as a human being and person. I admired his work ethic, everything about him.”
In a two-month span two years ago, Drury, the father of 19-year-old Matt and 16-year-old Emma, went through the death of his own dad, who had led a difficult and sad life in later years that included addiction and homelessness, and an unexpected divorce. Amidst it all, the dog who'd served as his trusty companion for many years died.
Hancock said he couldn't change anything or alleviate the pain Drury was experiencing, but just maybe this was the time for him to start thinking about his career, his own dreams. As part of that, Drury again started having horses stabled at Churchill Downs, which boosted his profile even before Art Collector. This winter, he might have a small string in New Orleans — the first time he's had horses stabled outside the Louisville area.
“Throw the horses out of it,” Drury said of Hancock. “He's taken me under his wing, and he's a close friend and advisor. His support and encouragement give me the confidence to go out and swing for the fences when it comes to my career.”
Whether Art Collector wins or loses the Preakness, he definitely has raised Drury's trajectory. Lunsford withdrew Art Collector's yearling half-brother (out of the mare Distorted Legacy and sired by the super-hot stallion Into Mischief) from Keeneland's recent auction. The youngster figured to fetch a huge price, but Lunsford instead will race the horse with Claiborne as partner and Drury the trainer.
“We want to help Tommy have a great career,” Lunsford said.
Bruce Lunsford, who will have his first Preakness Stakes (G1) entrant when Art Collector takes on Kentucky Derby winner Authentic Saturday at Pimlico, knows something about tough races and taking on formidable opponents.
After all, as the Democratic nominee for Kentucky's U.S. Senate seat in 2008, he gave Mitch McConnell the closest call of the Senate Majority Leader's long political career.
“Oh sure, even in politics there's a common thread,” said Lunsford, comparing it to horse racing. “I went into a race that nobody thought I could win. I was 25 points behind; I was tied with two weeks to go. It was like the stretch drive. It was fun, exhilarating, and I got to meet a lot of people. Mitch and I still have a decent relationship today. I think he respected what I did, and I saw where he was quoted as saying the only time he'd had his people write a concession letter was in the race with me. Because two weeks out, it looked like we were going to win.”
The 72-year-old entrepreneur and philanthropist from Louisville has been many things: Founder of a Fortune 500 company, investor in a myriad of start-up companies, producer of movies, partner in the Kentucky Kingdom amusement park and Hurricane Bay water park. He worked in state government as Kentucky's commerce secretary. Now Lunsford would love nothing more than to add classic-winning horse owner and breeder.
Art Collector, out of Lunsford's mare Distorted Legacy, is his first Preakness entrant and his second in the Triple Crown, following Vision and Verse, the 1999 Belmont Stakes (G1) runner-up to Lemon Drop Kid at odds of 54-1. Art Collector — who is 4- for-4 this year, including the $200,000 RUNHAPPY Ellis Park Derby and Keeneland's Toyota Blue Grass (G2) — was supposed to be the first Kentucky Derby starter for Lunsford and trainer Tommy Drury.
Within days of being fulfilled, that Derby dream was derailed when Art Collector sustained a minor and fleeting, but untimely, foot issue. A month later they are back on solid ground for another swing in the Triple Crown.
“It's the only thing you work on, probably, that you spend weeks and days and everything to get ready and it lasts two minutes or less,” Lunsford said. “So a lot of stuff is just outside your control. I do like the way this horse runs. They all have to get out of the gate. We've seen a lot of horses over the years who are really good break bad and it takes them out of the action. This horse has not shown a propensity to do that. If he gets in the flow and we get a fair trip, I've got to like our chances to hit the board. Anything above that gets to be gravy. But a lot of the handicappers all of a sudden are picking him. So I don't know exactly what that means.”
Lunsford wonders how the Derby might have been different had Art Collector been in the field, given that his horse and jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. logically figured to put more pressure than the front-running winner Authentic faced in his absence.
“The good thing is that speculation doesn't matter, because we're going to get a chance to run against each other,” Lunsford said. “I'm hopeful both have a good trip, and I'd love to see them down the stretch together. I'll take my chances.”
Lunsford grew up in Kenton County in northern Kentucky near Cincinnati, his dad a union shop steward who wound up buying a small farm. Young Lunsford got interested in horse racing while attending the University of Kentucky and going to Keeneland. In the summers he'd go to Ellis Park with his fraternity brother and close friend Greg Hudson, whose dad owned horses.
A CPA who also received a law degree from Northern Kentucky University, Lunsford in his early 30s was Kentucky's commerce secretary under John Y. Brown. In that capacity, he helped bring United Parcel Service's worldwide air hub to Louisville and was involved with launching the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts.
A few years later, Lunsford got into horse ownership by claiming a couple of cheap horses with his pal Hudson.
“The good news or bad news, whichever way you look at it, both of them won about $100,000,” he said. “So we thought this game is easy. We found out later it's a little more complicated.”
A couple of years later, Lunsford wanted to get involved in the breeding side of racing. He purchased one of his first broodmare prospects in 1994, paying $500,000 for a 3-year-old filly out of the Greentree Stable dispersal upon the advice of Claiborne Farm head Seth Hancock.
“You know Bruce, he wanted action,” Hancock recalled. “We said, 'Well look here. You can have your cake and eat it too. Greentree is dispersing these things, and here's a pretty good racemare who's got a great pedigree. You'll have some fun running her and maybe we can make a pretty decent broodmare out of her.' ”
That half-million dollar filly, Bunting, had one win out of 13 starts for her prior connections, but she also finished second in Keeneland's Ashland (G1) and Pimlico's Black-Eyed Susan (G2). In four starts for Lunsford, she won a Gulfstream Park allowance race before being retired to Claiborne Farm. She proved far better than pretty decent as a broodmare.
Bunting's first foal was Vision and Verse, who won the Illinois Derby G2) and also was second in the Travers Stakes while earning $1 million. Her 11th foal was a filly named Distorted Legacy, a minor stakes-winner who placed second in Belmont Park's Flower Bowl (G1). Distorted Legacy's second foal was Art Collector.
Until Art Collector, Lunsford's home-run horses came around 15 years ago.
His $160,000 yearling purchase Madcap Escapade won 7 of 9 starts and more than $1 million, including Keeneland's Ashland G1), and finished third in the 2004 Kentucky Oaks. The Frankie Brothers charge was being pointed for the 2005 Breeders' Cup Sprint against males when she suffered a career-ending injury. He sold a half-interest in Madcap Escapade at auction for $3 million, staying in for the other half, to another trusted advisor, John Sikura, with whom Lunsford also boards mares at Hill 'N' Dale Farm.
The Brothers-trained First Samurai, purchased as a yearling with his friend Lansdon Robbins of Louisville, won his first four starts in 2005, including New York's Grade 1 Hopeful and Champagne before finishing third in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile. The winner of Gulfstream Park's Fountain of Youth (G2) upon the disqualification of Corinthian for interference, First Samurai's Derby aspirations ended when he was injured in Keeneland's Blue Grass. He retired to a stallion career at Claiborne.
Lunsford also bred and sold Golden Missile, winner of the Grade 1 Pimlico Special in 2000, then sold that horse's mom, Santa Catalina, for $1.35 million five years later. He also bred and sold Canada's 2006 Horse of the Year Arravale, a two-time Grade 1 winner.
For all his success, Lunsford knows well how difficult it is to just get to the championship races, let alone win.
“Just like the experience at the Derby,” he said. “All things went right, and then he winds up getting what is almost like an ingrown toenail. You're talking about creatures that have large bodies and small legs. And things happen. Seth Hancock told me one time, you've got to learn to take the hard blows in this business… My good friend Don Dizney told me that it's the lows that make the highs so good. There's a lot of truth to that. If you can win 15, 20 percent of your races, they cover you pretty well. It's like the baseball player who bats .300.”
Lunsford today is chairman and CEO of Lunsford Capital, a private investment company he founded in 2003. The companies he has founded include Vencor, a Fortune 500 company now known as Kindred Healthcare, and its spinoff real-estate company Ventas; Atria Communities, the third-largest assisted-living company in America; and Valor Healthcare, Inc., a company that develops and operates outpatient clinics for military veterans under the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
“I was a start-up guy,” he said. “Now what I do is I invest in people that I think have it. I tell people I don't invest in financial statements, I invest in people. When I realize they have the skillset, we try to give them the things they need to do to make it work.”
Drury is an example. Lunsford one day this summer asked Drury what he had going on for the week. The trainer mentioned the various trips he'd be making up and down the highway to Belterra Park and Ellis Park.
“He said, 'Man, we've got to get you to the point to where you're not bouncing around so much,'” Drury recalled. “He said, 'Better-quality horses is going to do that to you. We need to sit down and talk.'
“And that's the kind of guy Bruce is. He's always willing to help others. Always willing to try to help you reach your goal and get to the next level. It's like the Blue Grass,” Drury continued, referencing Art Collector giving him his first graded-stakes victory. “It took me a long time to get to that. He knew that and I think he was genuinely happy for me. He's got a heart the size of Texas. It makes you want to work that much harder and want to win that much more for people like that.”
Lunsford said that at this stage of his life, he only wants to do things that are fun and challenging.
“The thing I've done well is I've built a really nice staff,” he said. “The guy who runs the whole real-estate company which is assisted living and apartments, his dad was my barber. His son Brian (Durbin) is like my right-hand man. Every time I get out of Jerry's chair, I say, 'I just can't tell you how he's changed my life.' I have a team of about six people of his quality. I've built a team of people where, if I drop dead tomorrow, they can keep it going.”
Lunsford laughed when asked if he's an under-the-radar Shark Tank.
“I can relate to everything they do, except I don't have as much money,” he said.
So maybe a Shark Tank Lite?
“That's right,” he said. “You know I was in the movie business for a while with Ed Hart, had about 10 movies we made. We had a lot of fun. Made a little money, lost a lot of money. But I will say one thing: I was in the two toughest business anybody can be in: the horse business and the movie business.”
Making having a horse of Art Collector's caliber even more satisfying for the father of daughters Amy, Cindy and Brandy and grandfather to six is sharing the experience with his significant other, Eleanor Porco.
“I have a lot that I enjoy in life, because I like action a little bit,” Lunsford said. “I don't think I'm an action junkie or anything. But this is one of those things where my friends are able to enjoy it. My two best friends are still alive. I mean, we're at the age where that could not be true. The whole idea of having a horse of this quality and at a time in my life when I've really got a great soulmate with me has just really turned it into a great blessing.
“There are only so many interesting things you can do in life. Outside of having your children and things you do as a kid, sports and otherwise, when you're older, it's harder to keep it exciting. I'm 72 years old and my life is still exciting.”
