Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, 87, suffered five fractured ribs when he was unseated from his stable pony at Oaklawn Park this week, reports the Daily Racing Form.
“I got bucked off, fractured five ribs in my back,” Lukas told DRF. “It wasn't pretty. I only made it seven seconds. I don't think I made the full eight. The judges gave me no points. I don't think I'll make the National Finals.”
Lukas has a 40-horse stable based at the Hot Springs racetrack in Arkansas, including current standout Kentucky Oaks winner Secret Oath. She will make her next start in 2023 as a 4-year-old in the Grade 2, $350,000 Azeri on March 11, with long-range plans to target the Grade 1, $1 million Apple Blossom on April 15.
The Board of Directors of the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC) unanimously named Gary Barber to fill the board vacancy created by the recent resignation of Bill Strauss.
Barber was named National Owner of the Year by the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association (TOBA) two years in a row (2019 and 2020) and his trademark hot pink silks are well known throughout the world, particularly in his home state of California. He has won more than 1,000 career races, on his own and in partnership, and has enjoyed top-level success at the Breeders' Cup as well as the Preakness Stakes.
Barber said, “My passion for Thoroughbred racing is steadfast. I look forward to joining the Board of the TOC and hope to make a meaningful contribution to the health and welfare of our sport and help attract a new generation of fans.”
Barber, originally from South Africa, is the founding partner of Spyglass Entertainment, whose commercial hits generated over $5 billion in worldwide box office including such films as Seabiscuit, The Sixth Sense, and Bruce Almighty. He currently serves as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Spyglass Media Group, LLC, a premier entertainment company behind the successful relaunched horror franchise Scream (2022), the reinvention of Hellraiser (2022), the drama The Upside, the upcoming high school comedy Incoming, and the iconic fashion competition series Project Runway.
With a career in entertainment spanning more than three decades. Barber is regarded for taking over Metro Goldwyn Mayer Inc. as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer in 2010, leading its transformational turn-around out of bankruptcy and shepherding such co-productions as Skyfall, Spectre, Creed, The Hobbit Trilogy and 21 Jump Street, as well as the award-winning drama series The Handmaid's Tale, Fargo, and Vikings, among others.
Barber is a long-time Thoroughbred owner, both on his own and in partnership with others, whose stars include Grade 1 stake winners/champions: War of Will, Got Stormy, Belvoir Bay, Salty, The Deputy, Wonder Gadot, Lexie Lou, Comma to the Top, Tourist, Catch a Glimpse, Becrux, Cost of Freedom, Jack Milton, Channel Maker, Get Her Number, Vequist, and Gretzky the Great. In addition to being an owner, Barber is also a breeder and holds significant interests in several stallions.
Strauss was a valued member of the TOC board since 2013 and will continue his connection with California racing. Per the bylaws, Barber will be required to run in the 2023 board election, when Strauss' term would have expired.
The only female announcer at a major track in the United States, Jessica Paquette is now three weeks into her tenure at Parx Racing in Bensalem, Penn. She spoke with The Racing Biz about the first eight cards of her career, addressing both the positive and negative reactions to her debut in the announcer's both.
“I've learned to not read the (online) comment section,” Paquette told The Racing Biz. “You know, no one is good at anything right out of the gate. And there's a huge learning curve.”
Paquette had never called races full-time before the Parx job, and she is working hard to improve her memorization and cadence skills. Though she has faced some harsh criticism online, Paquette has found allies in fellow track announcers Chris Griffin, Jason Beem, and Travis Stone, among others. Each has shared helpful feedback, she said, including useful tips for how to improve her race calls.
“Calling races is hard. I think I'm showing progress with every day and with every race,” Paquette said. “I hope people can hear that, that there is hope, some light at the end of the tunnel. I'm continuing to improve and absorbing the feedback.”
Trainer Norman L. “Lynn” Cash won his first graded stakes race in the Oct. 29 Kelso (G2) with 42-1 longshot Double Crown, but it is a starter allowance horse who has really put his fledgling stable on the map.
“I tell people that if I hadn't claimed Beverly Park, nobody would know who I am,” said Cash. “I just happened to grab him at the right time; I didn't pull him forward, he pushed me forward.”
The 5-year-old son of Munnings stands alone atop the North American statistics with 13 victories in 2022; there is a five-way tie for the second position with eight wins apiece.
More impressive, perhaps, is that Beverly Park has run 28 times this year, and he is entered again on Monday, Dec. 12. No Thoroughbred has run more in 2022; the next highest number of starts is 26, but that horse has just one win on the season.
It's an unusual pattern in the modern era of Thoroughbred racing, to be sure. Then again, at 6'7” in height, his trainer isn't quite the usual backstretch character, either.
“I think we kind of complement each other,” Cash mused. “I think there's a lot of trainers that wouldn't have run him as much, and maybe I ran him too much, but three to four days after a race he can't wait to get back to the track. If you try to hold him back he gets mad; he wants to go. And as far as a healthy horse, he's just completely a tank! We've never had any soundness issues with him.”
Cash grew up in New Mexico with a couple riding horses “that didn't get rode much.” He first remembers becoming a racing fan in the era of the Alydar and Affirmed match-ups, but Cash never considered taking part in the sport until his roofing business brought him and his wife across the Mississippi River to Tennessee.
“I told my wife, 'Hey, we can go see the Kentucky Derby live!” Cash recalled. “The first time we saw it was Animal Kingdom in 2011, and then the next year it was I'll Have Another.”
Cash and his wife attended all three legs of the Triple Crown in 2012, including the Belmont Stakes after I'll Have Another's scratch the day before the race.
“After the Belmont, I saw in an article that I'll Have Another was bought at auction for $35,000,” said Cash. “I told my wife, 'Hey, we could do that! How fun would that be?'”
Luckily, Cash's wife agreed, and the couple bought their first three Thoroughbreds just a couple weeks later at the OBS June sale of 2-year-olds in training.
Mal Guapo was the first. A son of Into Mischief, he won two for Cash as owner before being claimed away and going on to win 16 races during his career. (Years later, Cash paid to pull the horse from a horse rescue in Florida and brought him home to his newly-built farm in Midway, Ky.)
Speight's Right (Speightstown), the second purchase, never made it to the races.
Take It Like A Man was the golden ticket from that first group of purchases. A son of Run Away and Hide, the colt won a $400,000 stakes race at Charles Town as a 3-year-old.
“We were kind of hooked from there,” said Cash. “In good years with the roofing company, we would add a couple horses to the stable, and in years that weren't as good, we didn't have the extra money to do that.”
It wasn't always smooth sailing.
“Early on, when I would claim horses, my wife would go and check the bank accounts and I could see the wheels were turning and jaw grinding,” Cash admitted. “I had to explain to her, 'Lola, you gotta think of this as a used car lot. You gotta put cars on the lot, dear; if we got nothing in the barn, we can't make money. We still have the same asset, it's just not liquid right now.'
“For six months I had to keep reminding her. I don't know if she got tired of hearing the car lot or not, but finally she came around! Then I got smart and bought a filly and named her Lola Flo, for my wife, Lola Florence, and my wife said, 'Let's go get a few more horses.'”
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In early 2020, Cash started thinking about making the switch to racing full time and becoming the trainer for his own stable (he and his wife own all the horses themselves under their Build Wright Stables banner). While Cash lacked the hands-on horse experience that would typically preempt such a move, he had found that the backstretch offered plenty of talented horsemen who often lacked business skills.
“I'm creating a business,” he explained. “I've created businesses that have been profitable and successful, and this is a business that just so happens to deal with horses. I probably lack a little bit on the horseman side, but it's getting better all the time. I'm learning every day, but the frontside claiming, the odds, the spotting horses, that's one of my strengths that helps make up for it.
“I'm having the time of my life. I go and run all the time, and it's not like this is a job, even though it's 80-90 hours a week. I still can't believe we're getting paid to do this; the worst day on the track is better than any day on a roof!”
The two horsemen who've made the biggest difference in Cash's business have been his shedrow foreman, Blas Hernandez, and his assistant trainer, Jay Libertini.
“When I was first in the barn, going back 18-20 months when I was just starting, it took me a few months to get where I was comfortable around the horses,” said Cash. “I remember being intimidated a little bit; I had to go in and get my education also. I saddled and worked like a groom, even though I was the owner/trainer, I wanted to make sure that I was familiar with these things.”
One of the biggest challenges was learning to ride out the wild ups and downs that are inevitable in this sport.
“Sometimes you go through these dry spells when you get beat up by the big barns, just day after day, race after race, and sometimes it wears on you,” he said. “Last September we had a horrible meet at Churchill, and back then we had a lot more emotion. My wife used to tell me she couldn't stand it when we thought the horse would run well and we ended up walking back through that tunnel at Churchill next to the jockey. Now, a year and a half later, maybe we're able to control that emotion a little better.”
Both the excitement of race day and the thrill of the winner's circle have kept Cash and his wife thoroughly enthralled by the sport, and the trainer can't picture himself doing anything else.
“I just love race day,” Cash said. “I remember when we had only 2-3 horses, back years ago when I was just owner, and it was so exciting that after the race I'd almost be a little depressed – win, lose, or draw – because I had to wait so long for the next one. That doesn't happen now; we run a lot. But that's the fun part, and I still get the same thrill. The claiming side is awfully enjoyable too, especially when we claim one who then does well a race or two later.”
Beverly Park
Cash's most successful claim is not Beverly Park, even though he's the horse who makes the news most often. That honor goes to Sir Alfred James, a $62,500 claim who has now won over $500,000 under Cash's name. Another son of Munnings, Sir Alfred James has won two stakes races and placed in a graded stakes, and even gave Cash a runner on Kentucky Derby day this year in the G1 Churchill Downs Sprint, in which he finished fourth.
“Some horses you claim and they don't move up, so those tend to be losses, but some have just blossomed and just gone crazy,” said Cash. “Beverly Park is one of those, and so is Sir Alfred James, and that makes up for a whole lot of sins.
“Of course it's cool to hear about the Beverly Parks of the world, but there's also the other side, too. I've had horses that I claimed that I was never able to race, and we've worked hard to help find them new homes. One went to be a foxhunter, and it's so cool to get the pictures of him enjoying his new job.”
It appears Cash is setting up for the long haul: any retirees now have a home at his farm in Midway. Cash has nine fillies and mares on the farm to become broodmares, and he also has two retired geldings he utilizes as babysitters.
“I tell everybody I'm going to die in that home, in this business,” Cash said. “You couldn't get me out with a crowbar! Even when I'm not at the races or the barn, I'm still pulling up things on my phone, looking at horses that are in over the next few days, or somebody will call and we're going back in. It's very consuming, and for a while it pushed everything out and it was just racing, but now I've got a little bit more of a balance with other important things in life.”
