Horse Racing : Tired Lady’s Secret Headed for Auction Block

Lady’s Secret’s inept performances on the track this year are as surprising as the fact that she--and 23 other stakes-winning horses trained by Wayne Lukas--will be sold at auction in Lexington, Ky., on Nov. 14.

That they are being sold is no surprise, since many of them are owned by Gene Klein, who has no plans to become a commercial breeder and prefers a stable of race horses to a farm of stallions.

But Nov. 14 is exactly one week before the seven Breeders’ Cup races worth $10 million at Hollywood Park. Why sell horses that could run for all that money just seven days later, and enhance their value if they won?

Lukas said that his clients had no choice. The dispersal immediately precedes Keeneland’s week-long breeding-stock sale, which draws an international crowd of buyers. Last year, buyers there spent $118 million in November.

“It was either sell then, when the Arabs and all the others were on hand, or wait until January,” Lukas said. “The January sale doesn’t draw nearly the money that’s around in November, and the Arabs wouldn’t be there. And if we staged a sale of our own, independent of anything else, I know we wouldn’t get the Arabs.”

Besides Lukas’ horses, there will be two other major consignments in Lexington that weekend--dispersals by Tartan Farm-John Nerud and Warner L. Jones Jr. Tartan and Jones are leaving the breeding business.

Lukas said that the sale, which includes mostly stakes winners, should not affect his training plans for the Breeders’ Cup.

“Lady’s Secret isn’t the only real good one we’re offering,” Lukas said. “We’ll have Pine Tree Lane, North Sider and a few others in there. Some of them will be shown on video (from California to Kentucky) if they’re out here getting ready for the Breeders’ Cup.”

Lady’s Secret, a daughter of Secretariat and horse of the year in 1986, should still draw bids of several million dollars if she doesn’t win another race, which could be the case if her run for the parking lot at Saratoga the other day is any indicator.

Lady’s Secret, bet down to 3-10 in an allowance race against five nondescript male horses, was intent on heading for the outside fence and Chris McCarron had to pull her up on the first turn.

Lady’s Secret’s entire 5-year-old season smacks of a campaign being run by an ailing horse, but other than a sore mouth, which has apparently been corrected by a change in bits, the Lukas camp has been saying that there’s nothing wrong with her.

What may be wrong with Lady’s Secret is that she is feeling the effects of a 45-race career that produced a record $3 million in purses for a female but kept her in hard training for more than two years.

In 23 of the 26 months from October of 1984 through November of 1986, when she won the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Santa Anita and clinched horse-of-the-year honors, Lady’s Secret has run has least one race.

There were no breathers along the way, either. After winning the first start of her career, at Belmont Park in May of 1984, Lady’s Secret ran in 40 straight stakes races, a streak that didn’t end until she was moved down to allowance competition at Monmouth Park last June. Lady’s Secret won 22 of those stakes, and finished in the money in 11 of the others.

John Henry may hold the unofficial record for most consecutive stakes, but it took the old gelding five years to run 45 of them. Lady’s Secret ran in those 40 straight stakes in only three years.

This summer’s Saratoga meeting could be remembered as a negative turning point in the career of Broad Brush as well as Lady’s Secret.

Broad Brush, favored in Saturday’s Whitney Handicap before a record Saratoga crowd of 50,407, finished third and prompted another trainer with a horse in the race to say: “He came back real lame. I’d be surprised if he ever ran again.”

Trainer Dick Small doesn’t describe Broad Brush’s condition that pessimistically. “It’s been a long grind and he’s a little the worse for wear after all the wear and tear,” Small said.

Broad Brush, considered the best handicap horse in the country before the Whitney, started 1987 in California, made two trips to the West Coast and also has run in Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Boston while earning more than $1 million, giving a lot of weight to the opposition most of the time. He carried 127 pounds in the Whitney, while Java Gold and Gulch, who ran 1-2, had respective imposts of 113 and 117 pounds.

“He may sleep in his stall for a month,” one of Broad Brush’s handlers said after the Whitney.

Horse Racing Notes Perrault and Estrapade ran prep races at Del Mar before they won the Budweiser-Arlington Million and Royal Heroine used Del Mar as a springboard to a second-place finish in the Arlington race. Saturday’s $200,000 Eddie Read Handicap at Del Mar is expected to draw one Million eligible--Sharrood--and Le Belvedere, who is on the Chicago race’s alternate list. . . . Capote, who hadn’t run since he finished next-to-last in the Kentucky Derby, led for half a mile as the 17-10 favorite in an allowance race at Saratoga Monday, then wound up third. . . . When Very Subtle ran a half-mile in :43 3/5 in winning the Test Stakes at Saratoga last week, Angel Cordero, who rode another horse, looked up at the tote board afterward and said: “Even Groovy couldn’t run that fast.” Mel Stute, Very Subtle’s trainer, thought the filly was going even faster. Stute was watching the race where he couldn’t see the board, and the crowd muffled the track announcer’s voice after he said 43 seconds. Very Subtle has never lost around just one turn. . . . Parimutuel wagering in the Nashville, Tenn., area was defeated by 700 votes out of more than 125,000 cast. . . . Seldom Seen Sue, who raced with an anti-bleeding medication in California, but couldn’t use it Saturday because of New York rules, bled while running sixth in the Whitney Handicap at Saratoga. . . . Leon Rasmussen, a bloodlines expert at the Daily Racing Form and who with Steve Roman popularized the dosage system in analyzing Kentucky Derby horses, has retired after a 50-year career.

A match-up between Super Diamond and Ferdinand is shaping up in the $100,000 Cabrillo Handicap at Del Mar Aug. 29. . . . Judge Angelucci will leave Del Mar to run in the $200,000 Longacres Mile on Aug. 23. . . . Savona Tower, third in the La Jolla Handicap at Del Mar last Sunday, has been sidelined indefinitely with a foot injury he suffered during the stretch run. . . . It took rain for Creme Fraiche to win again. The winner of the 1985 Belmont Stakes and earner of $2.5 million, Creme Fraiche won in soft going the other day at Saratoga for his first victory since last January in Florida, where he last raced on an off track. . . . Talinum’s problem, which kept him out of the Kentucky Derby, was a ligament injury and he faces a recuperation period of at least four more months.

Corey Black, originally scheduled to return to France to ride, will finish the season at Del Mar. . . . Yves Saint-Martin, considered to be the greatest jockey France ever produced, says he is retiring after this year. . . . Fortunate Moment, a Chicago horse who won six in a row, including three in 16 days, will run in the Omaha Gold Cup at Ak-Sar-Ben Saturday instead of the Travers at Saratoga Aug. 22. . . . The three-day Del Mar yearling sale resulted in 148 horses being sold for $18,339, an increase of about 12% over last year. The highest price was the $85,000 that Ronald Waranch of Beverly Hills paid for a colt by Temperence Hill out of B.T.’s Baby, who is the dam of the stakes-winning Fast Delivery. Trainer Ted West, whose Interco won the Santa Anita Handicap in 1984, bought one of his sons for $75,000.