Lukas: Though ‘Slow To Develop,’ Ram Deserves His Shot In Preakness Stakes

Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas was back in very familiar territory Tuesday morning, sitting outside the Preakness Stakes Barn. After discussing his Preakness candidate Ram, who went to the track around 6:30 a.m., Lukas, 85, reminisced a bit about his 40-plus years of competing in the Middle Jewel of the Triple Crown at Pimlico Race Course.

Christina Baker and William Mack's Ram will be Lukas' record 45th starter in the Preakness, marking the 30th time his trainer has had at least one runner. Lukas won with his very first Preakness starter, Codex in 1980, and has been to the winner's circle five other times, most recently with Oxbow in 2013.

Lukas said that Codex was assigned that last stall on the side of the barn facing away from the track and that his horses have been in that spot every year since.

Exercise rider Jade Cunningham was up on Ram for the trip to the track Tuesday morning.

“He just galloped a mile, but I let him catch his stride through the stretch, almost at a two-minute lick” Lukas said. “Just wanted to let him feel the track a little bit and see how he handled it.”

Lukas said he thought the son of American Pharoah got over the Pimlico surface just fine but without his usual enthusiasm.

“I didn't think he had a lot of energy. He's usually pretty tough to handle, but he was quiet and pretty mannered today,” Lukas said. “I didn't do a lot with him, but I'm glad I took him out there and let him stretch his legs.”

Ram was purchased for $375,000 as a yearling in 2019. He secured his first victory on April 16 in his eighth career start, a $50,000 maiden claimer at Oaklawn Park. He followed that success with an allowance race win in the first race of the Kentucky Derby (G1) program.

Lukas said he was not surprised that it took Ram some time to emerge as a capable race horse.

“He was slow to develop, physically and mentally,” said Lukas, noting that the transformation took place over the winter in Arkansas.

The allowance win prompted Lukas to consider the Preakness.

“He's gotten good lately,” Lukas said. “For that reason, I thought he deserved the chance; that plus I like to come here. I like this place. This is a fun race. Even if you don't win, it's enjoyable.”

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Lukas Looking To Even Score With Baffert In Preakness 146

Hall of Famer D. Wayne Lukas will attempt to win a record-tying seventh Preakness Stakes (G1) as he runs Christina Baker and Bill Mack's 3-year-old Ram in the 146th running of the Middle Jewel of the Triple Crown next Saturday at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Md.

A victory would pull the 85-year-old Lukas even with Bob Baffert and 19th century Mid-Atlantic training icon Robert Wyndham Walden as the winningest Preakness trainers. Lukas' first Preakness came in 1980 with his first Triple Crown starter, Codex. His last came in 2013 with Oxbow, whose Preakness victory gave Lukas the lead in Triple Crown races-won with 14, a number his pal Baffert blew by in 2015 with Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, who coincidentally is Ram's sire. (Medina Spirit's victory in the 2021 Derby upped Baffert's Triple Crown total to 17 wins.)

Lukas said he and Mack made the decision to run Ram in the Preakness during a phone conversation Friday evening. Ram won his second-straight race while taking the mile allowance race that kicked off the May 1 Kentucky Derby (G1) card at Churchill Downs. Ricardo Santana Jr. picks up the mount.

“We realize he has to step forward to be effective,” Lukas said Saturday morning after Ram trained at Churchill Downs. “But when these horses are doing well, sometimes they'll step up and do what you want them to do. I always thought this horse had potential. He was immature; he's a May 13 foal. I bought him as a yearling. I liked him then. He was a little bit feminine, which I like. I gave him plenty of time, waiting for him to come around.”

If Ram should pull off the shocker in the 1 3/16-mile Preakness, it would be Lukas' biggest upset in a long career where he's made some champions by taking chances. Ram, a $375,000 yearling, won on his eighth attempt, coming in a $50,000 maiden-claiming race at Oaklawn Park.

Still, consider that Charismatic, Lukas' 1999 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner, twice ran in $62,500 claiming races, including when the horse broke his maiden on his sixth attempt, before blossoming into a dual-classic winner. Charismatic was running in stakes races, including taking Keeneland's Lexington (G2), before his Derby triumph at 31-1 odds. The Preakness will be Ram's first start in a stakes.

Lukas long has been an ambassador for the Preakness, extolling the atmosphere and Maryland Jockey Club's hospitality.

“I don't know if it's the camaraderie of all being in same barn, it just seems that people loosen up a little bit,” he said. “Take a little off their fastball for that one. They don't get so caught up like the Derby. It seems like everybody exhales after the Derby. It's just fun.

“… I don't have any grandiose ideas, but I think I could surprise some people how well this horse runs,” Lukas added. “I think the horses that ran in the Derby had a hard race. Ram had the most perfect prep for the Preakness you could have. He rated kindly behind those horses, circled them five, six wide and went off and won. Now whether that equates to a big Preakness, I don't know. But I wouldn't change a thing about his prep. I know it moved him forward. He's a better horse after that race. That entered my thinking big time…. And Santana is a strong finisher, and I think that will help me.”

Lukas said he plans to van Ram and his pony Riff to Baltimore on Monday. As usual, Lukas will be riding shotgun and keeping the satellite radio tuned to Willie's Roadhouse. Speaking of On the Road Again …

“I don't know how many more of these I'll have,” Lukas said, adding with a big smile, “But I do have a good 2-year-old.”

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Diversity in Racing: Angel Cordero Jr.

As a dark-skinned native of Puerto Rico trying to break into U.S. racing in the early Sixties against a largely white rider colony in New York, Angel Cordero Jr. may have faced more racism than anybody working in racing today. It happened to him inside and outside of the sport.

More than 50 years later, much has changed in racing and Cordero said he was proud of the strides Hispanic jockeys have made. At most tracks, they dominate the riders’ standings. But Cordero said there remains a problem for the jockeys from Spanish-speaking countries, who have not been given a chance to succeed in racing once they have retired.

That could change in the years ahead as more and more Hispanic riders retire, but, for now, racing’s executive offices and stewards’ stands are, as a whole, definitely lacking when it comes to the hiring of all minorities.

“They have a lot of jobs they could give to jockeys, like stewards,” he said. “You have three stewards at every track and at least one of them should speak Spanish. There are lot of jobs that a jockey could have when they retire. We don’t have a chance on the track to get a good job, the Spanish guy or the Black guy. I know it is true. I don’t see any Black or Spanish people working in one of those important jobs.”

It’s a matter of politics, Cordero said. Too often, the hiring of racing officials or track executives is not based on what you can do but who you know. That doesn’t help minorities.

“So many of them are political jobs and I think that’s why they don’t hire Spanish people to important jobs,” he said. “It’s tough for these jockeys to get a job on the racetrack. When you retire you are retired.”

Cordero, who is the agent for Manny Franco, works the New York circuit, which may have the most diverse group of stewards in the sport. There is a Hispanic (Braulio Baeza Jr.), a female (Dr. Jennifer Durenberger) and a white male (Brook Hawkins). But at many jurisdictions, the stewards stand is occupied by three while males.

Cordero also noted that there isn’t much of a Hispanic presence on racing broadcasts. Laffit Pincay III, among the most visible people in racing television, is the son of the Hall of Fame rider and Panamanian native Laffit Pincay Jr. But no other Hispanics have broken through in his profession. Cordero said he would like to see others have a chance.

When Cordero first came to ride in the U.S. in 1962, having a Black or Hispanic in the stewards’ stand or on television would have been inconceivable to him. His focus then was on navigating his way through society and breaking in in New York at a time when most top jockeys were white.

“When I first came here in the Sixties, racism was big,” said Cordero. “They wouldn’t serve me in certain restaurants and in a lot of places I had to go to a different bathroom. I couldn’t rent a house in certain neighborhoods.”

At the racetrack, Cordero said there were often reminders that he was different. He said he was more likely than a white rider to get a careless riding suspension and that he was told that conversing in Spanish in the jockeys’ room was not allowed. He’s also still bothered that investigators strip searched him before the 1971 Belmont looking for a battery and did not do the same to any other rider in the race. He said most owners were always very nice to him, but does single out a now-deceased Hall of Fame trainer who did not ride him, which Cordero always thought was because of the color of his skin.

But nothing could have prepared him for what he faced in 1980 after he won the Preakness aboard Codex, beating Kentucky Derby heroine Genuine Risk. On the far turn, Cordero, on Codex, forced Genuine Risk wide and many believed it was a case of rough riding that cost the popular filly the race. Afterward, Cordero was subject to threats on his life and said that many of the threats had racial overtones.

“I was getting all this hate mail. They said they were going to kill me and blow my house up,” he said. “In those letters, they would say ‘you’re a (n-word)’ or ‘go back to your own country.’ They attacked my color a lot.”

The situation got so intense that, after he returned to New York, the NYRA stewards told him someone was threatening to shoot him during a post parade.

“One day the stewards called me and said I should get off the horses and go home because they had an anonymous call from someone saying they were going to shoot me in the post parade,” he said. “I told them that wasn’t going to solve anything because they’d still be after me whenever I did come back and ride. They killed President Kennedy and he had people watching him. If they wanted to kill me, they’d kill me.

“They made me parade for one week all by myself. I’d come out of the jocks room first and spend five minutes on the track before the other jockeys came on the track. Instead of trying to fix the problem, they sent me out there all by myself as a target. If someone wanted to shoot me, they made it easier for them. They put a bullseye on me for a whole week.”

The retired rider said that if a white rider had been aboard Codex and did what Cordero did the controversy would not have been nearly as intense or so fueled by hate.

As he has watched the unrest spread over the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, Cordero worries that many of the strides the country had made on race since he came here in the Sixties have been reversed.

“I think this country is going back to being very racist again,” he said. “There are too many Black people getting killed. These people have been unarmed. It would be different if the guy was armed and causing trouble. They arrest them and they beat them up and sometimes they kill them. It’s a good thing so many people have cameras. Imagine if they didn’t and all the things they could be getting away with.”

Despite the problems he faced early on his career and the hatred he had to deal with in the aftermath of the Codex-Genuine Risk race, Cordero said he does not believe that horse racing is a racist sport.

But he isn’t willing to give the sport a complete pass. Particularly when it comes to hiring minorities to important management jobs, Cordero said he knows horse racing can do better.

Editor’s note: As many people in the United States and around the world question their personal views on diversity and racial inclusion, we decided to look inwardly on our industry, and we found it wanting. So we asked a tough question to several industry members: How do we make racing at its highest level more diverse? If you’d like to participate in the series, email katieritz@thetdn.com.  

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