Tank’s Prospect Taking Scenic Route to Derby

How romantic. Wayne Lukas will spend his first wedding anniversary on an airplane with a horse.

On May 1 last year, Wayne and Shari Lukas were married at Lexington, Ky., four days before the Kentucky Derby. This May 1--next Wednesday--Lukas will be escorting Tank’s Prospect from Hollywood Park to Churchill Downs as the trainer tries once again to win the Derby, which will be run for the 111th time a week from today.

“That’s just one of the plights of being a trainer’s wife, and Shari understands,” Lukas said on the phone from Hollywood Park Friday.

It’s not as unromantic as it sounds. Shari has booked a commercial flight from Los Angeles to Louisville Wednesday and will catch up with Wayne at their hotel here late Wednesday.

“I like being a horse trainer’s wife,” Shari said Friday from the Lukas’ Arcadia home. “But flying with a horse, that’s where I put my foot down. I think Tank’s going to give us a super anniversary gift, though, when he wins the Derby.”

The 3-year-old colt’s trainer is characteristically optimistic, too, but stops short of predicting victory. Tank’s Prospect ran second to Derby favorite Chief’s Crown, losing by three-quarters of a length in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Stakes at Hollywood last November. But Chief’s Crown, who ran a spectacular Blue Grass Thursday at Keeneland, appears to be even better than he was last year, when he won the 2-year-old championship.

Lukas has quit handicapping the Derby after starting seven horses in the last four years and not finishing better than third. Partez, who ran third for Lukas in 1981, was a horse who hardly figured in the Derby--he had won only one minor stake in his life and had finished sixth in the Santa Anita Derby.

“You look at the charts of previous Derbies and you find that there’s no rhyme or reason to them,” Lukas says. “I’m not planning too much strategy for this Derby. I’m just going to put the bridle on, give the jockey (Gary Stevens) a leg up and then ask the horse where he’s going to dinner that night.”

After Tank’s Prospect had won the Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park last Saturday, Gene Klein’s $625,000 colt was only 560 miles away from Churchill Downs. But Lukas flew the horse the 1,635 miles from Hot Springs, Ark., to Los Angeles, and it’ll be 2,082 more miles Wednesday from Los Angeles to Louisville. That’s going more than 3,100 miles out of the way to run in the Derby.

Lukas has never been known for the orthodox--last year, he became the first trainer to start two fillies in the same Kentucky Derby--and he has his reasons for the roundabout route of Tank’s Prospect:

--The track at Hollywood Park is a good one to train on and the weather there is more likely to be favorable than it might be in Kentucky. Tank’s Prospect’s last serious work before the Derby will be early this week at Hollywood.

--Lukas could remain with his large California division of horses.

--Lukas could also avoid most of the media stampede that is part of Derby week. Four straight years of answering many of the same questions apparently has taken its toll.

The main reason, however, for Tank’s Prospect’s late arrival at Churchill Downs may be the best one--Lukas has had phenomenal success flying horses into races at the last minute. For instance: Pancho Villa in this year’s Bay Shore Stakes at Aqueduct; Island Whirl in the 1981 Super Derby at Louisiana Downs and the ’82 Woodward at Belmont Park, and Marfa in the ’83 Jim Beam Stakes at Latonia.

After Tank’s Prospect finished last in the Santa Anita Derby April 6, he seemed an unlikely prospect to be running in the Kentucky Derby, because it was discovered that his breathing had been impaired by a trapped epiglottis, a piece of cartilage that folds over the opening of the windpipe during swallowing. But a team of veterinarians relieved the problem in a 15-minute operation, and Tank’s Prospect was able to run in the Arkansas Derby, coming from off the pace to win by 6 1/2 lengths.

Asked about the Kentucky Derby opposition, Lukas said: “I know I’ve got a good horse, but there are a lot of good 3-year-olds this year. There are seven or eight horses who really belong in the Derby, and no matter who wins, some of the others will be heard from before the year is out.”

Neither of the Lukas fillies hit the board last year. Althea, who also won the Arkansas Derby, led for almost a mile, then finished 19th out of 20 horses. Life’s Magic ran eighth.

Horse Racing Notes Fast Account, second in the Santa Anita Derby behind Skywalker, went three furlongs in 36 seconds Friday at Churchill Downs and will be in a 13-horse field in today’s Derby Trial. The rest of the starters in the mile race include Creme Fraiche, Alariva, Red Attack, Sky Command, Mickeydamoke, Ceriph, Patcandoit, Put Away, Tiffany Ice, Tajawa and the entry of The Royal Freeze and Nordic Scandal. . . . Most of the horses in the Trial would have to win in order to return in the Derby. The winner of the Trial hasn’t come back to win the Derby since Tim Tam in 1958.