d. wayne lukas | Horse Racing Free Tips

Risen Star Upsetter Continuing Sire-Making Tradition

This Saturday, Calumet Farm looks to pull off a bit of an upset in the GII Risen Star with their homebred Santa Cruiser (Dialed In), who broke his maiden last November and ran fourth in his most recent start in the GIII Lecomte S.

Santa Cruiser may go off as one of the longer shots on the board, but if he were to win, it wouldn't be the farm's first upset in the same race.

Three years ago, Calumet's homebred Bravazo (Awesome Again-Tiz O'Gold, by Cee's Tizzy) won the GII Risen Star S. at odds of 21-1 and went on to earn over $2 million.

This year, he retires to stud at his birthplace, having danced nearly every dance over his four-year career while running in the money in six of some of the top Grade I races of his division.

Bravazo will stand for a fee of $6,000 in his first year at stud, beginning his career as the first homebred to take up stud duty at Calumet since the farm was placed under new ownership in 2012.

“He would be the first stallion to have been born and raised and then go off to the track for Calumet and return as a stallion,” said Calumet stallion manager Darrell Hayes. “So he's pretty much a new chapter for Calumet under its new owner.”

Trained by D. Wayne Lukas, the dark bay broke his maiden at second asking as a juvenile before placing second in the GI Breeders' Futurity. He stamped his ticket to the Kentucky Derby with his victory in the GII Risen Star S., taking the three path around the far turn and battling to get the nose over stakes winner Snapper Sinclair (City Zip).

“Bravazo was such a hard-knocking horse,” Hayes said. “He started his 3-year-old campaign in the Risen Star winning just as he does best, coming down the stretch and leaving everything on the track. Guts out, heart out, determined to get ahead and leaving everything on the track. That to me showed a lot of guts, a lot of will.”

Bravazo got up for sixth in the 2018 GI Kentucky Derby and nearly caught Justify in the GI Preakness S., finishing a close second.

Later in his sophomore season, the colt ran second behind champion Good Magic (Curlin) in the GI Haskell Invitational S., third in the GI Runhappy Travers S., third in the GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile and second behind Leofric (Candy Ride {Arg}) in the GI Clark H.

“Bravazo's 3-year-old campaign had 11 starts, eight of which were Grade I and five of which he placed and showed in,” Hayes said. “To me, it was one of the strongest 3-year-old crops, including a Triple Crown winner who Bravazo almost caught at the wire. Bravazo was one of those horses that showed up every day and played his heart out. Whether he won or not, he left everything on the track that he could give.”

“It showed in all those Grade I races that he ran in,” he continued. “They were filled with champion horses. He wasn't scared to run against the tough competition. Bravazo had such a tough campaign as a 3-year-old and had almost double the amount of starts as any other top competitor that he had that year.”

In recent years, the rather obscure cross of Awesome Again with Cee's Tizzy in Bravazo's pedigree has developed into a tried-and-true sire-producing match up.

It started with Ghostazpper. The first and most famous son of Awesome Again to be named a champion, his stakes-winning dam was a daughter of Relaunch – the sire of Cee's Tizzy. Ghostzapper is now on track to surpass his late sire with 12 Grade I winners.

Then came another son of Awesome Again named Paynter. This one was out of Tizso (Cee's Tizzy), a full-sister to Tiznow but also a granddaughter of Relaunch. Paynter would, of course, go on to stand at WinStar Farm as a Grade I-winning millionaire now making headlines as the sire of red hot champion Knicks Go.

Calumet stallion Oxbow (Awesome Again) was bred by Colts Neck Stables and is out of Tizamazing, a full-sister to the dam of Paynter. Their dam, Cee's Song, was bred to Cee's Tizzy eight times, six of those resulting in stakes winners or the producers of stakes winners.

Oxbow was purchased by Brad Kelley's Bluegrass Hall as a yearling for $250,000 in 2011. A year later, the Calumet Investment Group purchased Calumet Farm and leased it to Kelley. Oxbow's win in the 2013 GI Preakness S. marked the first Triple Crown race win for the farm in 45 years. He now stands at Calumet as a five-time stakes producer and his 3-year-old Hot Rod Charlie ran second in last year's GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile. Oxbow's full brother and now sire Awesome Patriot won the 2011 Alydar S.

A year after Oxbow's Preakness win, Calumet found a similar mating up for grabs at the Keeneland November Sale. Tiz o'Gold was in foal to Awesome Again and, just as the dams of Oxbow and Paynter, was by Cee's Tizzy. Additionally, all three broodmares were out of mares with Seattle Slew as their grandsire.

Calumet Farm brought Tiz O'Gold home for $35,000 and soon after, she foaled Bravazo.

Hayes said that this son of Awesome Again offers unique qualities from those of the aforementioned studs.

“Bravazo has a very attractive, maybe thinner top than a lot of the Awesome Agains,” he said. “He's a good-looking horse with a fantastic head. He brings a little bit more late speed that I think will help him down the road.”

Bravazo now has the entire Calumet team anticipating this new season in the homebred's career.

“We've had some other horses come in that we've acquired during this racing careers, but for him to be an actual bred-and-raised racehorse, foaled on the farm, is unexplainable,” Hayes said. “We're so excited; we're looking forward to getting him in the breeding shed and having his foals come next season.”

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Lukas Back At Oaklawn: ‘I Feel Better Here Than Any Place’

If it's hard to keep a good man down, what about a great trainer?

The legendary D. Wayne Lukas, 85, has returned to Oaklawn, his winter base for more than a decade, after recently losing another one of his longtime prominent clients in an era of super trainers, declining foal crops and COVID-19.

But “The Coach” is still coaching, among other things, overseeing a downsized stable – 27 horses – mentoring two 20-something female exercise riders and continuing to take his runners to the track each morning on a pony.

“We're down in numbers, like most barns, other than two or three,” said Lukas, a former high school basketball coach who was Oaklawn's leading trainer in 1987 and 2011. “Some of them are up, but we're not. I think what we've got will give us a competitive meet, but I don't have any grandiose ideas that we're going to have a dominant meet.”

A four-time Eclipse Award winner as the country's outstanding trainer (1985, 1986, 1987 and 1994), Lukas has several well-bred young prospects, notably Nov. 27 Churchill Downs maiden special weights graduate Lock Up, unraced My Favorite Uncle and Ram.

Lock Up, a 3-year-old by Maclean's Music, is a half-brother to Grade 1 winner Sinister Minister. My Favorite Uncle is a 3-year-old son of champions Uncle Mo and Storm Song. Ram, a 3-year-old ridgling by 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, is a half-brother to millionaire Coal Front, winner of Oaklawn's $500,000 Razorback Handicap (G3) for older horses in 2019 for trainer Todd Pletcher. Lock Up is nominated to the $150,000 Smarty Jones Stakes Jan. 22, Oaklawn's first of four Kentucky Derby points races.

“Lock Up just broke his maiden, but he did it pretty impressively,” Lukas said. “You look at that video, it was very impressive and the time was excellent. I'm sure his sheet numbers are going to be pretty good.”

Ram is winless in four starts, but did run second in a Sept. 3 Churchill Downs maiden special weight route. The winner, King Fury, returned to win the $98,000 Street Sense Overnight Stakes Oct. 25 at Churchill Downs before running seventh in the $2 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile (G1) Nov. 6 at Keeneland.

“I'm looking for Ram to especially improve this spring and maybe get in the fray a little bit if everything goes good,” Lukas said. “He's got some ability.”

Ram was purchased for $375,000 at the 2019 Keeneland September Yearling Sale by the now-deceased Robert C. Baker and William L. Mack, who had previously campaigned Grade 1 winners Strong Mandate, Sporting Chance and Dublin with Lukas, as well Super Saks, winner of the $150,000 Carousel Stakes for older female sprinters in 2016 at Oaklawn.

Lukas said Baker's recent death represents the loss of another “key client,” following Eugene Klein (died in 1990), W.T. Young (2004), Bob Lewis (2006) and Bob French (2013). Some of Lukas' best horses for Klein, Young, Lewis and French included champions and/or Classic winners Lady's Secret, Tank's Prospect, Flanders, Grindstone, Charismatic, Timber Country, Serena's Song, Capote and Landaluce.

“I'm from the old school,” Lukas said. “The five major clients that I've had have all died. That hurts. You don't replace Bob Lewis, somebody like that, at least in this age. That's five guys that were 100 percent behind me in the sale ring and everything. But we're here, 85 years old, on a pony every day. What the hell?”

Lukas owns or co-owns a handful of his horses, including the maiden Atoka, a 4-year-old Union Rags colt with a string of bullet workouts at Oaklawn. Lukas' right-hand man remains longtime assistant Sebastian “Bas” Nicholl, while exercise riders Kaylee Crotchett and Jade Cunningham are learning the ropes under the Hall of Fame trainer. Crotchett, 22, said she will make her riding debut aboard Mr. Peterkin, a Lukas-trained 3-year-old maiden, early in the 2021 Oaklawn meeting.

“I'm trying to make Jade a top exercise rider,” Lukas said. “She's tall. She's really come along great. Kaylee, I'm going to ride.”

Lukas, of course, already has an immaculate track record as a teacher. Several of his former assistants, including Pletcher, Mike Maker, Dallas Stewart and three-time Oaklawn champion Bobby Barnett (1994, 1995 and 1996), became stars after going out on their own.

“I'm still coaching,” Lukas said. “A couple of guys that have left me recently, they are calling me on the phone, trying to get advice on this and that. I think once a coach, always a coach. I don't think you ever get away from that. I find myself even saying things where I don't belong out there with some young guy. I'll say, 'What don't you try this with that horse?' I find myself doing that.”

Lukas has been sidelined in recent years with heart and back problems and took a brief sabbatical in August because of COVID-19. But it's hard to keep this great trainer down.

“I'm 100 percent,” Lukas said. “In fact, I feel really good. My energy is better here than any place where I go. I think it's the air. I think it's the oxygen. What do they say? The trees filter the air. But I have more energy and go on less sleep here than any place I go. I've got a beautiful home in the woods in Kentucky, but I feel better here than any place. You see why people come here and retire.”

Lukas has a home adjacent to the northeast corner of Oaklawn property. He has 324 victories, including 47 stakes, in his Oaklawn career.

Overall, Lukas has amassed 4,842 victories and $282,785,442 in purse earnings in his career, according to Equibase, racing's official data gathering organization. Lukas was a 1999 inductee into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame

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Crotchett To Make Race Riding Debut At Oaklawn After Galloping For Lukas, Catalano

Kaylee Crotchett, an exercise rider at Oaklawn for Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, said Sunday morning that she plans to make her riding debut early in the 2021 meeting that is scheduled to begin Jan. 22.

Crotchett, 22, was raised in Henryville, Ind., about 25 miles north of Churchill Downs, and has been galloping horses for approximately 5 ½ years.

“I'm really excited right now,” Crotchett said. “I'm sure the day of the race, my adrenaline will get to me, my nerves, but this is something I've worked so hard for.”

Crotchett said her first scheduled mount is Mr. Peterkin, a 3-year-old Ghostzapper colt who is winless in six career starts for Lukas. Mr. Peterkin, under Crotchett, worked a half-mile in :53.20 over a fast track Sunday morning in advance of his 2021 debut.

Crotchett said she grew up trail riding and began galloping horses at 16, initially working at a small training center in Indiana before moving to Churchill Downs to work as an exercise rider for trainer Buff Bradley. She spent approximately a year as an exercise rider for Lukas before going to work as an exercise rider for trainer Wayne Catalano early in the 2020 Oaklawn meeting. Crotchett said she reunited with Lukas in September at Churchill Downs.

“Kaylee's ready to ride,” Lukas said Sunday morning. “For two years now, I've been working on the gate with her and she's getting away real well. She's (100) pounds. That helps. She sits a horse beautifully. Again, it will get down to those girls that are light like that, finishing. I told her to get on that mechanical exerciser and get that finish, get strong. I'm going to put her on a couple and I expect her to do well.”

Crotchett said she had hoped to make her riding debut last year, specifically in early May at the end of Oaklawn meeting, but racing's uncertain landscape because of COVID-19 contributed to delaying her debut.

“Things have just been tough with the pandemic and everything, so I just took a step back,” Crotchett said. “I came back and worked for Wayne, and he said he was going to help me. I just kind of sat still and came back here. Hopefully, things will get going and I'll have a good meet.”

Crotchett said she will not have an agent to begin her riding career.

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Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: ‘I Want To Be Somebody Who Lifts People Up’

As the “policemen” of the track, outriders have to command the respect of exercise riders and backstretch workers alike in order to be effective at their jobs. Most tend to utilize a tough guy type of attitude on the job, but Oaklawn outrider Chisum Ewing prefers more of a “lead by example” approach. His voice is quiet and calm, but it has an authority in it that can't be denied. His instructions or corrections are always delivered with the same respect he expects in return.

Admittedly, the 32-year-old native of Hot Springs, Ark. used to have a reputation as a “hard a**” on the track and as a “party guy” during his off hours, but that all changed in 2017 when tragedy altered the course of Ewing's life forever.

After the Oaklawn Park meet ended in April that year, Ewing underwent shoulder surgery and needed six months off to recover.

“I've been on the racetrack my whole life; I didn't know what it was like to be off the track,” Ewing said. “There's not a lot of work to be had for the kind of wages I was making on the track, and that was kind of disheartening to me. I mean, I couldn't get a job waiting tables. I thought, 'I'm not even good enough to wait tables, are you kidding me?'”

The hits kept coming.

“I felt kind of lost,” Ewing continued. “Even though I have a lot of faith, I got into this depressive state. My best friend was living with me at the time, and I came home one day and caught him trying to commit suicide. I told him, 'We're still friends, but I need you to move out because I can't be around that kind of energy.' He begged me to let him stay, but I had to ask him to leave the house.

“Then, later on that evening, he killed himself. I really, really took that hard. Through that time, I was just here. I had no money, I'd depleted everything from six months off. I'm just trying to figure out all this stuff at once, past history all crashing down on me.”

He started attending a local church, Encounter, but just going once a week and immediately leaving after the service wasn't enough.

Ewing distinctly remembers one afternoon sitting on the bathroom floor in his house, struggling with suicidal thoughts of his own. He looked up and saw a cobweb under the medicine cabinet, and it made him angry. He got up and knocked it down.

The next day, Ewing found himself in the very same place, hearing those same negative thoughts echoing through his brain.

“I looked up, and I saw a spider rebuilding that web,” Ewing said. “I thought about knocking it down again, but I ended up sitting there and just watching for a while. I'm watching this spider, and I hear, as clear as I'm talking to you, 'You see that spider?' I said, 'Yeah.' And the voice said, 'Do you see what he's doing?' I said, 'Yeah.' The voice explained, 'He's not worried about what he's going to eat, where his next meal is coming from, he's just meticulously working on that web, doing what he's been created to do. He knows if he works at it hard enough and long enough, he's going to catch something.'”

It was so simple, a spider building a web, but the message was enough to silence Ewing's negative thoughts, at least for that day. The very next afternoon, he heard about a last-minute mission trip to Honduras with Encounter Church, and Ewing knew he had to go. The only problem was the cost: $2,400.

Ewing started selling off everything he could think of, but he was still a bit short at the deadline.

“This couple I met at the church, she just sold her wedding ring and handed me the cash,” said Ewing. “To have that kind of love from a stranger, when they don't even really know you, that struck me in such a way… it made a lasting impression for the rest of my life. My family situation isn't really that great, so to have a stranger have that much confidence in me, I was just blown away.”

Chisum Ewing, far left, takes a selfie with kids during his first mission trip to Honduras

That trip to Honduras helped Ewing turn his personal tragedy into a calling to help others. Through all the amazing experiences, one event really stuck out. It involved taking big, yellow pieces of posterboard to schools, on which the kids were supposed to write their dreams.

One child asked, via interpreter, why Ewing didn't write his own dream on the board.

“At first I kind of laughed it off,” Ewing said. “Then I wrote down, 'I want to be used as a light, to show others the way.' You know, there's other things that I'd like to do, but no matter where I am, that's my biggest goal.

“I want to show somebody love or kindness that maybe hadn't ever been shown it. I want to make a mark in this world, not to be famous myself, but to make God famous. Everybody always puts people down; I want to be somebody who lifts people up.”

When he got home to Hot Springs, Ewing began to see things he'd never taken the time to notice before.

“Hot Springs has a massive homelessness problem,” Ewing said. “Being on the racetrack, you sometimes don't realize the rest of the world. I didn't realize that human trafficking is a thing in Arkansas. I didn't realize so many parents were pimping their children out, that so many children were abused… There's a city 2 ½ hours away from here that sends their homeless here on a bus, so that their city doesn't have a homelessness problem.”

Ewing started a new routine: multiple days a week, he would purchase sandwich makings at the grocery store and pass them out to the city's homeless population. A few friends from the church began to volunteer their time to help him, and now, through partnerships with a couple other organizations, the group he started feeds hundreds of people each day.

Chisum Ewing, right, takes a moment to pray with a man in Hot Springs

“I've heard so many amazing stories,” said Ewing. “There was a lady one time who walked out of the store with groceries in her hands. She came up and wanted food. She was mad and cussing me, because another guy just took the last plate, but then he gave her his food. I told him, 'Look man, I'm really sorry, but I don't have anything else.' He said, 'Dude, I'm fine. I'm not worried about my next meal. I wake up and hope that everyone can be as blessed as I am.'

“I sat on a bench for two hours that day, thinking that even though he has nothing, just look at this man. In his heart, he's got it figured out because he knows how to love people. That's really giving. That's when it really struck me, if you reach out and help somebody, not only are you seeing them prosper, they've been touched in such a way that they also want to help people.”

Ewing's future goal is to build a facility near Hot Springs to break young horses, employing kids and young adults who might not otherwise be given a second chance. It'd be almost like a halfway house, he explained.

“If I can teach them a trade, maybe they can pull themselves up and have a chance to succeed in life,” Ewing said. “I'm working to learn more about the system here, so that I know how to work within it when the financials are ready to make this dream a reality.”

He hopes the farm can also run cattle, enough to continue his mission work of feeding those who are hungry. Though Ewing is incredibly pleased with the progress he and his church have made in feeding the homeless population in Hot Springs, he knows there is more work to be done. Still, he hasn't given the operation a name or an official non-profit status.

“I'm not trying to draw attention to myself – I'm not wanting to benefit,” Ewing explained. “I understand the need to advertise and all that, but that makes it about the people, and not the service. I just want everybody else to see how good God is. I want everyone to have an understanding and appreciation for what He can do in your life if you allow Him to.”

Ewing's new perspective has extended to his job on the racetrack, as well. He recalls one morning in particular at Oaklawn, when he was outriding and saw Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas out on the track on his pony. Ewing suddenly felt moved to ride over and pray with Lukas.

“At first he was telling me he was busy, but I've learned to listen to that feeling inside me,” Ewing said. “I could tell he received it because he was just kind of speechless, and he sat there the rest of the morning just talking to me, not about the horse or racing or anything, but about life.”

Ten days later, Lukas rode over to Ewing in the morning with a big small and a bright light shining in his eyes. Lukas relayed that he and his wife had been driving around Hot Springs when he saw an amputee standing on a street corner with his dog. Lukas wanted to stop, but his wife was driving and laughed off his request.

Lukas said they didn't get more than a mile down the road before he asked his wife to turn the car around.

“I don't know what Wayne gave him or did for him, but it doesn't matter,” Ewing said. “Wayne told me that as much as he's won on the track, he'd never won that big in life. This is a Hall of Fame trainer; he's won Derbies! But the joy that was on his face, and the fulfillment he got that he expressed to me, that's what really makes me feel like I'm succeeding in life.”

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