clayton rash | Horse Racing Free Tips

Oklahoma's two-time Horse of the Year, Welder, won the $130,000 Oklahoma Classics Sprint for the third year in a row Friday night at Remington Park. The lightning fast gray gelding could well be headed toward Horse of the Year status again.

The 7-year-old son of The Visualiser, out of the Tiznow mare Dance Softly, won his 10th stakes race in a row at Remington Park, extending his record in that category. He toyed with this field of six for the first half-mile of the six-furlongs, and when jockey David Cabrera pushed the button?

“He grabbed the bit and said, 'See ya!'” said Cabrera. “He is usually very aggressive, but tonight, whew. He really wanted to win this.”

Trainer Teri Luneack agreed with her rider.

“It's been everything we could do to control him (at the farm),” she said. “I feel so bad for Courtney (Scanling, Luneack's assistant). She has to hand walk him every day and sometimes he gets a little country. He ran a great race. I'm so proud of him. This was a tremendous team effort from top to bottom at the barn.”

Owner Clayton Rash (Ra-Max Farms), of Claremore, Okla., was wearing his lucky OU Sooners red sweatshirt. He said it really helps to have a horse like this that doesn't have a down year, especially when your football team has started at two wins, two losses.

“It really does help,” Rash said with a belly laugh. He goes to the barn three or four times a week just to scratch Welder's nose. “He even knows my cologne now. I'm a man of loyalty and I will continue to wear my Sooners stuff.”

This millionaire gelding, bred at Center Hills Farm's division at Mighty Acres Ranch in Pryor, Okla., isn't getting older; he's getting better. Welder took another step toward the all-time winningest record at Remington Park. This was his 13th win in 17 tries in Oklahoma City. He is now two wins away from tying Highland Ice and Elegant Exxactsy, who won 15 races each in their Remington Park careers.

Luneack had a good feeling about Welder all week with him jumping out of his skin.

“He can be really crabby when the girls go in (the barn) until they break out the peppermints,” she said. “Courtney is in charge of the crazy with him so I don't have to. I thought that close win on the grass might have taken something out of him, but it didn't.”

Welder won the Remington Park Turf Sprint in his last start on Sept. 25, grinding out a neck-long victory in what has been determined to be his one and only turf start.

In the Classics Sprint, Welder sat just off the pace set by 3-year-old gelding Mesa Moon and then took over in the stretch, cruising to a four-length win as the heavy betting favorite at 2-5 odds. He covered the six furlongs in 1:09.78 seconds and paid $2.80 to win, $2.10 to place and $2.10 to show. Mesa Moon (2-1 odds) held on for second, 2-1/4 lengths in front of No Lak of Speed. The interior fractions were :22.13 seconds for the first quarter-mile, :44.96 for the half-mile, and :57.18 for five-eighths of a mile.

Welder is expected to make his next trip to Remington Park for the Silver Goblin Stakes on Friday, Nov. 13. After that, if Welder doesn't have another race in Oklahoma City, Oaklawn Park is a strong possibility in Hot Springs, Ark., for his 8-year-old year debut.

“Like I am with my Sooners and Welder, I'm very loyal to Oaklawn,” said Rash. “I've been going there for the races since I was 18 years old.” That's over about a five-decade period now. There are two more loyalties Rash has no problem divulging.

“David and Teri are both phenomenal with Welder,” Rash said. “I can't tell you how much they mean to me.”

Welder earned $78,000 for the win and now has raced 36 times, won 24 and finished second five times and third four times. His lifetime bankroll is $1,137,018.

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When trainer Teri Luneack was a little girl she would lie in bed and stare at her Barbies on horseback and the horses on the curtains that covered her bedroom windows.

When Luneack fell asleep, however, she never in her wildest dreams saw herself training a racehorse to a million dollars in earnings. She has done that, and will once again saddle that millionaire, Welder, in an attempt to win his 10th stakes race in a row at Remington Park when he runs in Friday night's $130,000 Oklahoma Classics Sprint. Welder is also trying to extend his record of nine consecutive stakes victories at this track.

If you didn't believe in destiny before, the storied road that led Luneack to Welder and his owner Clayton Rash (Ra-Max Farms) of Claremore, Okla., might change your mind.

Luneack grew up in Michigan and when she graduated from Traverse City Senior High she walked out the doors of the high school and straight into the United States Navy.

“I was 17 years old and immediately joined,” she said. “While I was in the Navy from 1984-88, I learned to be a welder.”

Insert goose-bump music here. That was long before she started working with horses and years before meeting Rash, who had built an international welding business.

“That's crazy, isn't it?” she said of the welder connection. “To think years later I would go to work for Clayton and him saying, 'Let's name one horse Welder.'”

Luneack learned her hard-nosed work ethic in the Navy and that led to success as she moved into the horse world. She began training horses in the show horse industry when her kids, Taylor (son) and Haley (daughter), were young.

“I showed dressage for years before my children were old enough to show,” she said. “Once they got bigger, we started showing together. Both of my children are extremely good horsemen.”

Luneack and her crew in Michigan won many world championships in both halter and riding. She had never met Rash before, but he had show horses at the time.

“Taylor actually introduced me to Clayton and we all decided it would work great for me to come down to Oklahoma and run Clayton's farm there,” she said.

So, while the Navy had shown her places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Diego Garcia, Thailand and the Philippines, the horse world had plopped her down in Claremore, Okla.

On one bright morning while searching for yearlings to buy in nearby Pryor, Okla. at the Mighty Acres farm, fate struck this outfit like lightning in a thunderstorm. Rash had put aside enough money to buy about five yearlings priced at $6,400 apiece. They had just about wrapped up the deal when Luneack said she spotted a little, gray guy standing in the corner of his stall.

“He was perfect; straight as an arrow,” she said. “We asked if they would throw him in and eventually they said yes.”

Shortly thereafter, Rash suggested to Luneack that they name one of the horses in the bunch “Welder.”

“I said, 'How about this gray one? He's a welder's colors.'”

The rest is history in Oklahoma horse racing. Here is a litany of the things Oklahoma-bred Welder, a son of The Visualiser, out of the Tiznow mare Dance Softly, has accomplished under the keen eye of Luneack's training:

Two-time Oklahoma Horse of the Year.
Only horse in Remington Park history (since 1988) that has won back-to-back Horse of the Meet trophies.
Set the track record for six furlongs in 1:08.13 seconds winning the David M. Vance Sprint on Sept. 29, 2019.
Nine consecutive stakes wins in a row at Remington Park – two Remington Park Turf Sprints (one was taken off the turf and moved to a sloppy main track), three wins in the Silver Goblin Stakes, two wins in the Oklahoma Classics Sprint, and two Vance Sprints.
Crept up on Slide Show's all-time 11-race win streak at Remington Park before losing an open allowance on Dec. 14, 2019. He had nine wins in a row, settling for second longest streak in Oklahoma City.
Four-time Horse of the Meet at Will Rogers Downs in Claremore.
Winner of Thoroughbred Racing Association Oklahoma Classic Sprint five years in a row at WRD.

He is the prohibitive 1-2 favorite to win his third Oklahoma Classics Sprint in a row. Highland Ice and Okie Ride won this race four times. Medium Rare won it three times. Jockey David Cabrera has been aboard for eight of the nine stakes wins at Remington Park, Travis Cunningham started the streak in 2017 in the Silver Goblin.

Now the story has come full circle for Luneack as Welder's numbers – 35 starts, 23 wins, five seconds and four thirds for total earnings of $1,059,018, tends to make her head spin, much like the feeling she used to get staring at her Barbies and curtains as a child.

“I've always been horse crazy,” she said. “I'm thinking I was born with it.”

Remington Park racing continues Wednesday through Saturday, Oct. 14-17, with the first race nightly at 7:07pm. The Oklahoma Classics, a million-dollar night of divisional stakes events for top Oklahoma-breds, is on Friday.

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