THOROUGHBRED RACING / BILL CHRISTINE : Lakeway Pays Dividends on $2.7 Million

The horse market hadn’t collapsed yet when the international big spenders arrived at Keeneland in July of 1985. In a matter of minutes, a yearling son of Nijinsky II sold for a record $13.1 million, with a group headed by England’s Robert Sangster outbidding the late Gene Klein and his partners. Klein, it was said, wanted to go on in the bidding but was outvoted.

Money was being thrown around so freely that summer that when Mike Rutherford bought a filly for $2.7 million a couple of weeks later at Saratoga, he couldn’t even get his picture in the Daily Racing Form. A sister of the undefeated Saratoga Six and from the same family that produced Kentucky Derby-Belmont Stakes winner Bold Forbes, this daughter of Alydar and Priceless Fame was called Milliardaire. She never lost a race.

But she ran in only two--a couple of starts at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., that were worth $17,400. Her combined winning margins were 13 lengths.

“That was tough, not being able to race her anymore,” Rutherford said. “She didn’t get to the races until she was a 4-year-old, and then the vets told us that she had such a bad lung infection that it would have been risky to keep running her.”

Milliardaire became a broodmare, with no problems, at Rutherford’s 275-acre farm not far from Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., and now, with her second foal and first by Triple Crown champion Seattle Slew, she has given the world Lakeway, the best 3-year-old filly in the country. Out of left field, and well after the fact, Rutherford’s $2.7-million gamble has paid off.

Commended for his patience, he said, “Patience, hell. I just got lucky.”

Lakeway is so good that Rutherford and his Hollywood Park trainer, Gary Jones, are considering whether to run her in the $200,000 Alabama Stakes, against fillies, at Saratoga on Aug. 13, or wait for the $750,000 Travers there on Aug. 20. The Travers hasn’t been won by a filly in 79 years, and this year the field will be as tough as ever, with the speedy Holy Bull and Tabasco Cat, the winner of the Preakness and the Belmont, expected to be there.

Rutherford, a 54-year-old second-generation oilman from Houston, will make the call, and the guess here is that he will send Lakeway into the Travers, which at 1 1/4 miles is the same distance as the Alabama.

Racing fillies against colts is frequently folly, as it would have been had Rutherford and Jones run Lakeway in the Kentucky Derby, but the Travers makes sense. Lakeway would not jeopardize her leadership in the filly division, no matter where she finished, and if she somehow won the race, Rutherford’s horse would turn into a bona fide candidate for the horse-of-the-year title as well. She has much to gain and nothing to lose in the Travers. In the Alabama, she would gain little by winning and would lose a lot if someone knocked her off.

“I don’t see how, if she stopped right now, they could deny she’s the best 3-year-old filly in the country,” Jones said. “So we might try to do something even more. We’ll see how the Travers shapes up.”

Rutherford has this gnawing feeling that New Yorkers don’t appreciate horses from the other side of the country. Rebounding from her only loss, by a head to Sardula in the Kentucky Oaks, Lakeway traveled to Belmont Park in mid-June and beat the favorite, the New York-based Inside Information, while winning the Mother Goose Stakes by 4 1/2 lengths.

Afterward, there were reports from trainer Shug McGaughey’s barn that Inside Information was in season--going through an ovarian cycle--the day of the Mother Goose, and her performance could have been affected.

“So that other filly was horsin’,” Rutherford said sarcastically. “I wonder if Patrick Ewing was horsin’ the night the (Houston) Rockets beat the (New York) Knicks to win the NBA title.”

Rutherford has been breeding horses for 20 years and can be excused for being so fervid about his first potential champion.

“She broke a stakes record, the first stake she ever ran in,” he said, referring to the Las Virgenes early this year at Santa Anita. “Then she broke the stakes record for that race in New York. Now she’s run in a race that’s almost 50 years old (the Hollywood Oaks), and she’s broken that record, too. Did Ruffian ever do all this?”

Well, Lakeway did run the Mother Goose 1 2/5 seconds faster than Ruffian, but in 1975 the stake was run at Aqueduct, and Ruffian, winning by 14 lengths, also broke the stakes record while reaching the finish line in a gallop. If Mike Rutherford really wants to get New York’s attention, all he has to do is show up at Saratoga comparing his filly to Ruffian.

“We know the Lasix won’t be a problem (at Saratoga),” Rutherford said. “She ran in the Mother Goose without it, and it didn’t bother her.”

In winning six out of seven starts, Lakeway has been treated with the anti-bleeding diuretic for all her races but the one in New York, where race-day medication is prohibited.

As for Milliardaire, the latest member of her family is a filly by Dayjur, who arrived earlier this year. Then for the third time, Milliardaire was bred to Seattle Slew, a mating that took place on May 7, Kentucky Derby day. Lakeway’s brother or sister couldn’t have had a better start.

Horse Racing Notes

Casual Lies, a $7,500 yearling who was second, third and fifth, respectively, in the 1992 Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont, has been sold by her owner and trainer, Shelley Riley, to a New Zealand breeder for a reported $700,000. Casual Lies’ purses totaled $795,991. . . . Soviet Problem, who has won 10 of 13 starts, makes her second start on grass Saturday in the $100,000 Valkyr Handicap for California-breds at Hollywood Park. The 5 1/2-furlong race has drawn nine starters. Soviet Problem will carry 125 pounds, spotting the opposition nine to 17 pounds.

The Valkyr will be the last race in the National Best Seven. One of the other races is the $300,000 Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash at Laurel, where Cherokee Run is the 2-1 morning-line favorite. Others in the 11-horse field are You and I, who is 9-2, and Individual Style, at 6-1. . . . Sandy Shulman, who is battling Ron McAnally for the training title at Hollywood Park, ended an 0-for-21 streak Thursday when Onceinabluemamoon won the fifth race. Shulman also saddled Snowy River Miss, the ninth-race winner.

Mittens and Mink won her second race while in foal. Miss High Blade, also in foal, has won twice at the meeting and Splendid Dream has won once. . . . Fanmore, second to Slew Of Damascus in the Hollywood Gold Cup, is scheduled to return to grass and run in the $250,000 Arlington Handicap on Aug. 7.