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Prominent Arkansas owner Willis Horton won the 2021 Oaklawn Handicap on his 81st birthday. Horton may have an opportunity to celebrate again in 2022 with Last Samurai, who recorded his biggest career victory to date in Saturday's inaugural $150,000 Poinsettia Stakes for 3-year-olds at 1 1/16 miles at Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort in Hot Springs, Ark.

Ridden by Jon Court, a Horton favorite, Last Samurai ($10.20) edged 2021 Arkansas Derby winner Super Stock by three-quarters of a length in a meet-best 1:43.70 over a fast track. The Poinsettia was among four stakes races Oaklawn created in December to accommodate its earliest opening in history, and the last chance for Last Samurai to compete on a big stage against 3-year-olds.

“Well, I mean, he's turning 4 here pretty soon,” Fair Grounds-based trainer Dallas Stewart said by phone moments after winning the Poinsettia. “Just going to take our time with him. The main goal with him would be the Oaklawn Handicap.”

The $1 million Grade 2 Oaklawn Handicap is April 23. The 1 1/8-mile race, Oaklawn's signature two-turn event for older horses, was won last season by Silver State, co-owned by Horton and Winchell Thoroughbreds (Ron and Joan Winchell). Silver State also won the $150,000 Fifth Season Stakes and $500,000 Essex Handicap earlier in the meeting for Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen.

Like Super Stock, Last Samurai was making his first start at Oaklawn since last April's Arkansas Derby. Last Samurai finished a non-threatening fifth. The Malibu Moon colt also finished fifth behind champion Essential Quality in the $750,000 G3 Southwest Stakes last February, Oaklawn's second of four Kentucky Derby points races. Last Samurai was exiting races longer in advance of the Poinsettia, including a runner-up finish in the $200,000 G3 Greenwood Cup Stakes (1 ½ miles) Sept. 25 at Parx in Bensalem, Penn., and a troubled third in a Nov. 6 allowance event (1 ¼ miles) at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky. He was an allowance winner at 1 1/8 miles on the turf Aug. 10 at Colonial Downs in New Kent, Va.

“Listen, he's a 3-year-old running against 3-year-olds,” Stewart said. “It's a two-turn race. I don't know if he knows the difference between a mile and a sixteenth and a mile and an eighth.”

Last Samurai's first career stakes victory, and third in 12 starts overall, pushed his career earnings to $312,744. Horton purchased the colt for $175,000 at the 2020 OBS March sale of 2-year-olds in training. Last Samurai received a preliminary Beyer Speed Figure of 95, a career high, for his Poinsettia victory.

“I think he's going to be a real nice 4-year-old,” Stewart said. “It's nice that Oaklawn's running in December. Good opportunity to run horses. I really appreciate the meet here, being in December. We've got some nice horses to run there.”

Stewart made an 11th-hour decision to split his stable, initially sending a handful of runners to Oaklawn for the expanded 2021-2022 meeting that began Dec. 3. In addition to Last Samurai, millionaire G2 winner Long Range Toddy and Curly Tail, a 2-year-old son of two-time Horse of the Year Curlin, are on the grounds for Stewart. Horton also owns Long Range Toddy and Curly Tail.

Stewart said he will eventually have about 10 horses at Oaklawn, including “four or five” for Horton.

Stewart and Horton teamed to win two of Oaklawn's biggest races for 3-year-old fillies last season, $200,000 Martha Washington Stakes and $300,000 G3 Honeybee Stakes, with Will's Secret. Court was aboard for both victories, as well as Long Range Toddy in the first division of Oaklawn's $750,000 Rebel Stakes (G2) for 3-year-olds in 2019.

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Last Samurai represented Court's first stakes victory since he turned 61 in November.

“Dallas really wasn't specific about instructions,” Court said. “He knows that I know the horse. But we go over just basically how he's run before and how I've had success with him and we kind of went from there. But the owners have been really good and we communicate on how they would like to see the strategy turn out. It turned out very well today, especially when you end up in the winner's circle.”

The Poinsettia was the 702nd career Oaklawn victory for Court (No. 6 all time) and 36th stakes triumph. Court was Oaklawn's leading rider in 2000.

Stewart's Oaklawn division is overseen by assistant Jade Cunningham, who worked as an exercise rider at last season's meeting for Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas. Stewart is a former Lukas assistant.

Oaklawn's first major two-turn race for older horses in 2022 is the $150,000 Fifth Season at one mile Jan. 15.

The post Horton, Stewart Will Point Last Samurai To 2022 Oaklawn Handicap appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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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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