The Luster May Return for Lukas : Eight Top Contenders Could Mean Domination in Today’s Breeders’ Cup

A magnificent-looking chestnut, Flanders emerged from Barn 44 at Churchill Downs a few mornings ago, for her final pre-Breeders’ Cup tuneup.

“Here’s her highness,” trainer Wayne Lukas said with a smile.

Flanders epitomizes what has happened to the Lukas stable since it went 2 1/2 years without winning a major race, since its 10-year run as national training champion ended with Bobby Frankel’s taking the title last year.

The Lukas outfit also hasn’t won a Breeders’ Cup race since 1989, a barren stretch during which 22 horses ran in 18 of these million-dollar races.

That last impediment to the resurrection of a dynasty could end today at Churchill Downs, where the 59-year-old Lukas has the firepower to enjoy another day like that drizzly fall afternoon here in 1988, when he started 12 horses in six of the seven races and came away with three winners, three second-place finishers and a third-place runner.

Lukas was 1-2-3 in the Juvenile Fillies Stakes that day, and his four-horse fusillade of Flanders, Cat Appeal, Lilly Capote and Serena’s Song give him a chance for another sweep today. Lukas, who ran only two horses in last year’s Breeders’ Cup, has eight in the 11th annual event. Besides the 2-year-old filly quartet, he will saddle Timber Country in the Juvenile, Chimes Band and Harlan in the Sprint and Tabasco Cat in the $3-million Classic, the richest race on a $10-million card.

“This is a competitive bunch,” Lukas said. “It’d be nice, I guess, to have been able to scatter some of the fillies around, such as having one in the Distaff. But as tough as the Distaff’s going to be, maybe it’s just as well. We had our best day here in ‘88, but the scenario going in is always one that can change. I like my horses, but it’s going to be hard to dominate all of these fields.”

Lukas has won 10 Breeders’ Cup races, twice as many as Shug McGaughey and Neil Drysdale, who share second place in the trainers’ standings. With 79 starters, Lukas also has 11 seconds and eight thirds, and his $8.9-million Breeders’ Cup purse total puts him $5 million ahead of McGaughey, who is second on that list.

Lukas has bristled at criticism directed at his operation during the relative hard times of the 1990s.

“I had to defend myself for 1992, even though the stable earned almost $10 million,” he said the other day.

The $9.8-million purse total in 1992 was enough to lead the country, but it was far below the stable’s record year of $17.8 million in 1988, that bonanza year in the Breeders’ Cup. By ‘92, whether he is comfortable admitting it or not, Lukas was circling the wagons: His two biggest clients were gone, Gene Klein having died and Calumet Farm having gone into bankruptcy while owing Lukas more than $2 million in unsecured debts.

Those were niches not easily filled. In partnership or by himself, Klein raced six of Lukas’ Breeders’ Cup winners, and Klein also owned Lukas’ only Kentucky Derby winner, Winning Colors. Calumet raced Criminal Type, who won the horse-of-the-year title while missing the Breeders’ Cup because of an injury in 1990.

Now Lukas has two more high-powered ownership teams--William T. Young’s Overbrook Farm in Lexington, Ky., and Robert and Beverly Lewis of Newport Beach--in tow, and they complement one another as perfectly as Calumet and Klein did.

Young, a slight, soft-spoken 76-year-old man who made his money in peanut butter, stands five stallions, including Storm Cat, the sire of Tabasco Cat, Harlan and Cat Appeal, at his 1,600-acre farm. He races and sells their offspring.

Robert Lewis, 70, operates three beer distributorships in California and with his wife bought their first horses four years ago. The Lewises, who have no desire to breed horses, have been a force at auctions. They own Serena’s Song outright and are part of a Timber Country partnership that includes Young.

“We’ve got the best of all worlds now,” Lukas said.

The other night, at a dinner in Louisville, Young referred to Wayne Lukas and his 36-year-old son, Jeff, as “the best trainers in America.”

The Lukas operation had been reeling enough from a dearth of stakes winners when Young’s Union City broke down and died in the 1993 Preakness. Then seven months later, Tabasco Cat got loose at his Santa Anita barn and ran over Jeff Lukas, who was trying to flag him down.

The younger Lukas, his father’s chief assistant, survived major head injuries and came out of a coma to resume work at Del Mar last summer. At Churchill Downs, there has been enough work for both of them.

In the halcyon years, the Lukases would have 275 horses in training at a time, firing shots at stakes races from coast to coast from four divisions. Wayne Lukas said this week that number is down to 106, with divisions in California and New York.

Less could turn out to be more; Lukas is battling for a national championship again, and through October his horses had earned almost $6 million, putting him within about $42,000 of the national leader, Bill Mott.

Mott could have a big day himself today. His Paradise Creek is the 8-5 favorite in the $2-million Turf, and he is also starting Dahlia’s Dreamer and 1992 Turf winner Fraise for Madeleine Paulson in the 1 1/2-mile race.

The only time Tabasco Cat ran at Churchill Downs, he was 6-1 in this year’s Kentucky Derby, got knocked into another horse at the start and wound up sixth as Go For Gin beat him by nine lengths on a sloppy track.

Since then, Go For Gin is winless--the rain stopped when it was his turn to run--and Tabasco Cat has won the Preakness, the Belmont Stakes and the Kentucky Cup Classic at Turfway Park. In his other races, he has been second in the Jim Dandy, a well-beaten third in Holy Bull’s Travers and fourth, 3 1/4 lengths behind Colonial Affair, in the Jockey Club Gold Cup a month ago.

“I did a bad training job before that last race,” Lukas said. “I let him get too fresh, and he was hard to handle in the paddock and was rank in the race. If I had to do it all over, I would have taken something off his fastball.”

A victory by Tabasco Cat in the Jockey Club and another today might have thrust the colt back into horse-of-the-year contention, but now Holy Bull appears to have the title locked up, without having to run today.

“Holy Bull’s a brilliant horse, and I like him,” Lukas said. “If he wins the title, I’ll be at the dinner applauding him. But it’s a difficult year for the horse of the year. Holy Bull didn’t win a classic race, he didn’t run in the Triple Crown races we won--and now he’s not here. If Tabasco Cat wins Saturday, it would be unprecedented for a horse to win two legs of the Triple Crown and the Classic and still not win some sort of an award.”

Breeders’ Cup Notes

There’s a good chance that the Breeders’ Cup attendance record, set at Churchill Downs in 1988 when the crowd was 71,237, will be broken today. . . . The weather forecast is looking better, with the temperature expected to reach 70 degrees. There’s a 40% chance of rain during the afternoon, but a stronger chance for the rain to come after the races are over.

Dispute, Heavenly Prize’s entrymate in the Distaff, has been scratched because of abscessed hoof. . . . Eddie Nahem, Bertrando’s co-owner, was unsuccessful in getting a trainer’s license in California and failed the test for a license in Kentucky, according to Bernie Hettel, the chief steward at Churchill Downs. “He doesn’t have much of a knowledge of Kentucky racing rules, and that cost him,” Hettel said. “He’s a horseman, and he’ll pass it eventually.” Bertrando’s trainer will continue to be listed as John Shirreffs, with Nahem calling the shots.