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Lukas ‘Hopeful’ On Final Weekend At The Spa

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY – Here we are on the final weekend of the Saratoga season and–no surprise–D. Wayne Lukas is ready to take swings in both of the historic Grade I races for 2-year-olds.

The Hall of Fame trainer, who turned 87 Friday, will saddle Holy Cow Stable's Naughty Gal (Into Mischief) Sunday in the GI Spinaway S. The next afternoon, Lukas will send out BC Stable's Bourbon Bash (City of Light) and Western Ghent (American Pharoah) in the GI Hopeful, the final stake of the 154th season of Saratoga racing.

Lukas skipped the last two years because of a combination of Covid-19 and a downturn in the quality of his stable, but came back to Saratoga this summer with 16 horses for what has been a productive meet. Through Friday, the Lukas stable had a record of 4-6-2 from 23 starts with earnings of $607,889. During the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale, he signed the tickets for five yearlings for $2.725 million.

Three of Lukas' Saratoga wins came from his stakes starters. Bourbon Bash handled a maiden special weight field by eight lengths Aug. 13. Western Ghent, co-owned by Lukas and his wife Laurie, won a $75,000 maiden claimer Aug. 25. Naughty Gal, the GIII Adirondack winner Aug. 7, prevailed by 2 1/4 lengths despite running greenly and drifting out in the stretch under Luis Saez.

“She's corrected that, for sure, and I feel comfortable,” Lukas said, “And, of course, Luis is going to be a lot more familiar with who she is. The power steering kicked in and she overreacted to what he was trying to do. We wanted to be in the four or five-hole and we didn't want to be an eight or nine He ended up there so quick it surprised him.”

Lukas and his former assistant and fellow Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher top the Spinaway trainers's standings with six victories each. In 23 starts, Lukas has a 6-5-3 record in the seven-furlong race. He won with Tiltalating (Tilt Up) in 1984, the first year he ran at the track. His most recent winner was Golden Attraction in 1995.

Figuring out who belongs in a graded stake, Lukas said, comes down to experience.

“Well, if you've been doing it for 60 years, you get a pretty good cross section of what works and what won't,” he said. “I've been guilty my whole career of entering in stakes that I have no idea what the competition's ability is. That goes for everyday races. I'll enter in non-winners of two and somebody will say this or that about the race and I have no idea. But I know what wins non-winners of two. I've seen it enough that I know that I'm competitive in a non-winners of two unless Secretariat shows up or Ruffian.”

Before the 40-day meet July 14, Lukas expected BC Stable's Summer Promise (Uncle Mo) to be his Spinaway horse. However, she finished second in the GIII Schuylerville on opening day and Naughty Gal moved up in the pecking order in the stable with her Adirondack triumph.

“She's going into it and the other one's not,” Lukas said. “I'm running the best one I've got at this point.”

Lukas said Naughty Gal is an obvious standout.

“Awful strong. Big, powerful filly,” he said. “One of the best horsemen I know called me the other day and said 'Boy, that's a good-looking (SOB) you ran in the Adirondack. He was watching on television. She's a picture of conformation. For her age, her development, strength, size is incredible. She's really a study. You want to study one how they're supposed to look, she's it in every way. That's why I say the seven furlongs should just be right in her wheelhouse.”

Never shy about promoting his horses, Lukas said Naughty Gal is a filly with a future.

“Big time. And I'm anxious to run her two turns,” he said. “That's where I really want to see her run.”

If things go well in the Spinaway, Lukas said Naughty Gal is on the road to the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies in November at Keeneland.

“No bones about it,” he said. “I'm pointing her right there.”

Lukas is the career leader in Hopeful wins with eight from 32 starts. Pletcher and Steve Asmussen are next with three each.

Bourbon Bash was a well-beaten second to the Chad Brown-trained Blazing Sevens (Good Magic) in his first try July 24, but earned his trip to the Hopeful with the romp in his second start.

“He's a real immature colt, but I think he'll also relish the seven-eighths,” Lukas said. “He was getting in cruise control the other day. The only thing that is a little bit disturbing is the race was slow. Of course, it wasn't slow for him. When they say the race was slow, I always say, 'Well, he beat everybody that showed up.' I wondered about the time a little bit. I'm talking to Chad Brown and he said, 'You know, my colt is the one that beat yours' when I first started him. I said, 'well, it will be interesting the next time.'”

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Op/Ed: Opportunity to Make a Difference

This weekend the baton will be handed off from our traditional summer focal points of Del Mar and Saratoga to Franklin Kentucky and the Kentucky Downs meet. Full fields, big crowds, and a vibrant atmosphere made possible by Historic Horse Racing (HHR) machines, and an ownership group willing to invest in its potential. Kentucky Downs embodies great hope for Kentucky racing and our industry's future, and it was almost taken away Feb. 10, 2021.

It was a cold, nasty February evening in Kentucky, when the Kentucky House of Representatives took up debate on Senate Bill 120, the legalization of HHR machines. The intellectual property argument, which created HHR, was brilliant as it guaranteed revenue generated from the machines would flow through the Horsemen's purse account to supplement purse money. Lessons learned from other state's “racino” experiments were applied in Kentucky and masterly played by our industry leaders, to whom I am forever grateful.

It goes without saying, we are enjoying a boom period since the passage of HHR. Purse money is sky rocketing, handle increasing with more full fields, and investments being made around the commonwealth in our racing product. This boom period is thanks to our industry leaders and lobbying organizations who spent time in Frankfort, and across Kentucky, to secure HHR's passage, and it was not a small feat.

If you recall that night, many floor speeches were given from various representatives around the commonwealth, and many were not in favor of support. Many opposing our industry, took the opportunity to declare to their constituents why they “could not support” our industry. Many who supported the passage of HHR have since been voted out by their constituents. Let me say that again…many who voted to support HHR have since been voted OUT by their constituents. I would bet that if HHR was brought to the floor today, it would not pass…how's that for sobering.

In Kentucky alone, there are dozens of newly elected people who ultimately make the rules for our industry: HHR, taxes, workers comp, etc. Expect them to support us because “we are Kentucky's signature industry,” and know this “boom period” will quickly bust. Many who supported us, in Frankfort, have been voted out. We cannot sit idly and expect their replacements to make their same choices.

We are enjoying this period of incredible growth thanks to the tireless work of our industry leaders, however, for many years we have let too few carry our water. We are harvesting their hard work and it's time for more of us to engage. We are responsible for our future. Now is the moment to get involved. Please join us at Midway University in Midway Kentucky on Tuesday Sept. 6, to learn how we continue to step forward towards a bright future.

To learn more please click here and RSVP to brittany@horseswork.com.

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On Eve of Pacific Classic, Sadler Just Doing His Job

Four years ago on the eve of the GI TVG Pacific Classic, the hunt for the heavy favorite amid the lettered labyrinth of Del Mar's backstretch ended at Barn J.

The stall, of course, belonged to Accelerate (Lookin At Lucky), a sleek, shiny copper penny of a colt, who carried weighty expectations that this was the year his trainer, John Sadler, would finally shrug off the voodoo that had cursed his previous attempts at the coveted prize.

It was also viewed as a new high altitude for a horse whose climb to the summit of the sport had been distinguished not by a dizzying free-climb to the top, but by careful, steady progress. Each foothold earned and true. A trail of sweat left behind at each contour.

The team wasn't without worries. The horse's regular rider, Victor Espinoza–widely seen as something of a key to Accelerate's latent talent–had that July taken a crunching fall aboard the Peter Miller trained Bobby Abu Dhabi, whose sudden death during training left Espinoza with a broken C3 vertebrae in his neck and fears, miraculously temporary, of paralysis.

In the end, Espinoza's replacement, Joel Rosario, has probably ridden no easier winner before or since, quickly putting what looked like the length of a football pitch between him and his dumbstruck rivals with a stunning kick around the home turn.

Four years on, and the hunt for this year's heavy favorite on the eve of the Del Mar showpiece once again leads to Barn J.

“Right now I'm excited, but I'm not overly excited,” said Sadler, Wednesday morning in his office, of Flightline (Tapit), whose stall-padded floor to ceiling as though housing a madman, faces the office door.

To be fair to Flightline, we're not talking Hannibal Lecter. “He's very content here,” Sadler said. “Loves Del Mar. He's just a nice horse to be around. But you know, he has his quirks. He can be a little aggressive in the stall.”

As for Sadler's declaration of studied equilibrium, it provides a measured counter-point to the celebrity fandom that follows each rare race-day sighting of the horse.

“We've got a couple more days,” Sadler added. “When you get in race week and everything's gone well, you just want to maintain that. That's really the message coming out of here this week. He doesn't have to run any faster. He's just got to run the same as he's been running.”

Words to strike fear into the heart of this weekend's competitors, all of whom will have witnessed Flightline's clinical evisceration of the 21 hapless victims strewn in his wake between races one to four.

If indeed Flightline turns up on Saturday and runs the same as he's been running, the race will prove a fascinating bookend to Sadler's own trajectory these past few years, catapulting a stellar record into even higher orbits.

Accelerate, of course, subsequently secured Sadler his first Breeders' Cup victory, in the GI Classic and a Horse of the Year garland would surely have followed were it not for a Triple Crown that went the way of Justify (Scat Daddy).

Hitherto winless in the Pacific Classic prior to Accelerate, the trainer has since secured another two victories in the race, courtesy of Higher Power (Medaglia d'Oro) in 2019 and Tripoli (Kitten's Joy) last year.

The GI Santa Anita “Big Cap” H. was another West Coast landmark oddly absent from Sadler's travel card until Accelerate righted that wrong. Stablemates Gift Box (Twirling Candy) and Combatant (Scat Daddy) followed up over the next two years. The likes of Catalina Cruiser (Union Rags), Rock Your World (Candy Ride), Cistron (The Factor) and Flagstaff (Speightstown) each have played a part in keeping the heat turned on full.

Then came Flightline, a stratospheric talent from whatever plain you're on. A big long-striding and magnificent comet, blink and you'll miss him bright. The numbers have been crunched, cogitated and digested. Four races, four wins. Average distance of victory is 10.9 lengths. Beyers from a Death Valley summer of 105, 114, 118, and 112.

“Is this the best horse I've ever trained? I say, yes. I don't hesitate,” Sadler said. “I've never trained a horse like this in my 30, 40-odd year career. But I don't compare him to other great horses. That's for the sports writers and the handicappers and Timeform.”

Which piqued this writer's curiosity. What kinds of stresses come with the responsibility of a horse who draws inevitable comparisons to the likes of Frankel (GB) (Galileo {Ire})? What new instruments has he brought to the trainer's toolbox? Would he have had the skills to harness Flightline's talents if the horse had landed in his barn, say, 20 years prior?

“The horse is teaching me all the time,” Sadler said, before extolling the virtues of patience.

The horse's coterie of owners–Hronis Racing, Summer Wind Equine, West Point Thoroughbreds, Siena Farm, and Woodford Racing–all receive a gold star.

Despite their multitude, “the owners always allow me to do as I see fit,” he said. “It's all worked so far. So far so good.”

Pressed further, the trainer threw up his hands–the wrong week to wheel out the therapist's couch.

“You're asking me to be super reflective and conceptualize a lot of that stuff, but right now I don't allow myself to do that. I just do my job right now,” Sadler said. “Might be a better interview next week.”

Fair enough stick with the tangibles, like Flightline's last race, the GI Hill 'n' Dale Met Mile on GI Belmont S. day, when a sticky break propelled the horse into stop-start opening furlongs.

Given Flightline's lack of match practice, could the events of the Met Mile have been a blessing in disguise?

“People say that, which is fine. It probably was. But I sure like to break clean. I don't like to put any, you know,” Sadler said, pausing either for effect or the right words, “obstacles in the way.” This explains Flightline's homework assignments at Del Mar this summer, which included a five-furlong bullet from the gate at the end of July.

Then comes another tangible–the as yet unchartered distance of the Pacific Classic. “It's a big ask, you know, to go from a mile to a mile and a quarter,” Sadler said.

Though the stamina of lesser horses can be stretched out, explained the trainer, “when I talk about really good mile-and-a-quarter horses, first of all, they have to have the innate ability to run that far.”

With Flightline, “I've just got to hold him where he is,” he added. “On breeze days, you'll note that his gallops out are very good.”

Much has been made of the team's efforts at reining in Flightline's innate exuberance–a balancing act perhaps too easily under-appreciated.

Stifling too much of a horse's natural quirk and athleticism of a morning can sour them as fast as cream left out in the sun. Let the throttle out too far too often, just watch as the wheels fall off.

Juan Leyva, Sadler's assistant, has done a “beautiful job with him” of a morning, says the trainer, calling it a case of “two minds meeting.”

“He's getting more relaxed, you know,” Sadler added, of Flightline. “He is maturing. He's showing he can carry himself in a more relaxed manner. That's what we're seeing, which is a normal progression.”

As for Saturday, “I see a small field, but a very good field. I know these horses intimately and they're very good,” said Sadler. “We have a lot of respect for every horse in there.”

The Bob Baffert-trained Country Grammer (Tonalist), this year's G1 Dubai World Cup winner given a timely pipe-opener in the GII San Diego H. early in the meet, receives plaudits for his prior top-flight victories over the trip.

Sadler has watched the John Shirreffs-trained Express Train (Union Rags) “throughout his career,” he said. “He's a very nice horse.”

As for Ed Moger's Stilleto Boy (Shackleford), vanquished in Flightline's GI Malibu S. last December, “I like him a lot,” said Sadler.

But talk switches back to the horse mere feet away, saved from himself by padded walls and kept from the public's gaze by a series of well-documented issues and events. Sadler has kept the door open to a 5-year-old campaign. How serious are those overtures?

“We'll get into Saturday and then see how it goes.”

Now, about that interview next week…

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This Side Up: Flightline Ready For More Altitude

The race is not always to the swift. Pretty old news, by this stage: it's right there in Ecclesiastes and, nearly as long ago now, you could see as much when More Than Ready cut the last corner in the Kentucky Derby. He transparently didn't get home, flattening into fourth behind Fusaichi Pegasus. But the brilliance of that move was instead sustained through his second career, where he just kept on going–whether measured by years, or air miles–and proved a far more potent force than the rest of that Derby field put together.

While he certainly maximized his legacy, famously shuttling 19 consecutive seasons to Australia, his loss at 25 still leaves a challenging void. Few stallions today are embraced with the same conviction in such diverse environments and, if his service as a domestic conduit for the Halo line is to be prolonged, then we appear precariously dependent on one of his later sons: Daredevil has just produced his first crop since repatriation; Funtastic had a timely first winner last weekend; while Catholic Boy and Copper Bullet are making their debut at the yearling sales.

Catholic Boy would be an especially apt heir, as only the third American sophomore to win Grade Is on both dirt and turf. Don't forget that he had already won graded stakes on both surfaces as a juvenile. His failure to kick on after the GI Travers S., bombing out at the Breeders' Cup and then confined to a fitful campaign at four, shouldn't efface a pretty extraordinary career to that point.

In terms of carrying forward the More Than Ready legacy, Catholic Boy also has a suitably eclectic background: his first two dams by Bernardini and Seeking The Gold; his third, by Nijinsky II; while his fourth is the Argentinian champion La Sevillana (Arg). She starts a chain of seven native mares tracing back to a daughter, delivered in 1890, of one of Argentina's great foundation mares, Ante Diem. This is just the kind of sturdy backbone at an urgent premium in the modern breed.

(Listen to this column as a podcast.)

More Than Ready himself, of course, was by a stallion who did so well in Argentina that he reverse shuttled to Kentucky–and what a blessing that was, given that Southern Halo replicated the great Almahmoud as granddam of both his sire Halo and damsire Northern Dancer. These timeless genetic brands were never about brute size, one of many misplaced obsessions of commercial breeders today, and More Than Ready was built on corresponding lines. But he still stood out a mile to J.J. Pletcher, the day he found him way out the back hill at Keeneland. Endorsed by another outstanding judge in Eddie Rosen, More Than Ready became so versatile an influence that we tend to forget what a commercial paragon he was on the track, all precocity and speed. His 10-length romp in the GII Sanford S. was already his fifth straight win, and he cut back to sprinting when returning to Saratoga the following summer to win the GI King's Bishop S.

In between, it had felt pretty well obligatory to roll the two-turn dice for the Derby, and perhaps it's going to prove a similar story at Del Mar on Saturday when Flightline (Tapit) stretches out for the GI TVG Pacific Classic.

This horse is already doing great things, but that doesn't yet make him a great horse. If we're seriously supposed to reconcile ourselves to the miserable possibility that Flightline might be wilfully confined to half a dozen starts, then at least we must thank his connections for exploring his talent so far as that meteoric passage would permit. He crossed the continent for the GI Hill 'n' Dale Met Mile off a long layoff, for instance, and now takes on some hard-knocking stayers at their own game.

And, as with More Than Ready, not to mention a horse that once brought a Citation-sized streak into the Pacific Classic, the race is not always to the swift. Even to the very swift.

Flightline, to this point, is a phenomenon that couldn't really happen in Europe. His serene indifference to the upgrading of his opposition has merely served to confirm what his speed figures had already told the handicappers. The fact is, however, that the test anticipated at Belmont didn't really materialize. And he will no longer be measured only against the clock, now that he is set so very different an examination.

Nobody would deny that he appears to have the stuff of greatness. To European sensibilities, however, 312 seconds is an insufficient body of evidence for his elevation to the pantheon. And actually, even if he were to smash up these horses the way he has all others, I would be reserving my first plaudits for a trainer who could win the premier summer prize of his home state with four different horses in five years–with Hronis Racing, moreover, a fortunate party to each.

That run was initiated by the late-blooming Accelerate, who the previous year had joined Arrogate (another cautionary precedent among perceived invincibles) in taking a rear view of Collected. Nobody needs to tell John Sadler or his clients, then, about the fulfilment available when a horse is permitted to mature to the peak of his powers. But the opinion that Flightline is the most valuable stallion prospect ever to go to stud, while pardonable in one fortunate to have a stake in whatever his value proves to be, would certainly not have been aired in times when the measure of greatness was rather more exacting.

Nearly all the names you might sensibly shortlist for the top dozen American Thoroughbreds of all time underpinned their brilliance with competitive longevity. Whether the horsemen of today are nervous of real or perceived deficiencies in their charges, I guess we just have to get used to it. But unless and until horses are again asked to demonstrate their resilience, then even horses as infectiously exciting as Flightline will never again reach the same kind of public; and nor will breeders of the future know quite what they're getting.

In which case, never mind the race going to the swift. Everybody, after all, knows what a fast horse looks like. But how on earth can we know whether or not the battle is to the strong?

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