Lukas Needs Horsepower as Kentucky Derby Nears

Not that long ago, the Triple Crown races seemed to be trainer Wayne Lukas’ birthright. But last year Lukas had to rummage through his grab bag just to find a horse that would run last in the Kentucky Derby. And this year, one by one, his 3-year-old prospects have struggled. With the Derby less than eight weeks away, Lukas needs a wake-up horse before he calls for a hotel reservation in Louisville.

Unless Cape Town reverses himself Saturday in the Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park, and unless Time Limit recovers from a lackluster effort when he runs in the Louisiana Derby at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans on Sunday, Lukas’ best chance to run in the Derby may be Grand Slam, a star-crossed colt who hasn’t even run this year.

Horses seldom win the Derby after waiting until March to make their debuts as 3-year-olds--Sunday Silence was the last, nine years ago--but Lukas, known for asking his horses to extend themselves, is not saying Grand Slam won’t be in the gate at Churchill Downs on May 2.

Grand Slam, the 2-1 second choice to undefeated Favorite Trick in last November’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Hollywood Park, was seriously injured in the race. His left hind leg was sliced open by another horse’s shoe, a grisly injury that forced some veteran horsemen to turn away. The prognosis was that Grand Slam wouldn’t race again for six months, if at all. But he has been patched up and has had eight or nine workouts at Santa Anita.

“He’s further along than we thought he would be,” Lukas said. “I’d say he fits in with a group that includes Favorite Trick and Prosperous Bid--horses that are playing catch-up.”

Still, Lukas hasn’t picked Grand Slam’s coming-out race. Last year in the Champagne, Grand Slam beat Lil’s Lad, who will be favored Saturday in the Florida Derby. A month before the Champagne, Grand Slam won the Futurity at Belmont Park.

“He’s a legit horse, he’s already proved that,” Lukas said. “But if he’s to make the Derby, he’s going to have to do it off two races. The first one would have to be a nice effort and the second one would have to be a bang-up effort. If he gets those two races in, then we’ll consider the Derby.

“I’m under no pressure whatsoever from the owners [a partnership that includes Michael Tabor, who won the 1995 Derby with the Lukas-trained Thunder Gulch] to get to the Derby. So we’re not going to strain to get him there. We might skip the Derby and have him ready for the Preakness. It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s what [trainer] Bill Mott winds up doing with Favorite Trick.”

The Preakness, the second leg of the Triple Crown, will be run at Pimlico on May 16. The series ends with the Belmont Stakes in New York on June 6. Favorite Trick, who was voted horse of the year after winning all eight of his races in 1997, makes his 3-year-old debut in the Swale Stakes, part of the Florida Derby undercard Saturday at Gulfsteam.

Should Lukas rush Grand Slam into the Derby and fail, he can expect to be reminded of the Capote debacle in 1987. Owned in a partnership that included the late Gene Klein, who embraced the Derby, Capote was one of Lukas’ most gifted 2-year-olds. Late in 1986, he won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, but took seriously ill around the time of the Hollywood Futurity in December.

After being voted champion 2-year-old, Capote was off until April, then was beaten badly in the Gotham and the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct. He didn’t even finish the Derby, ran only three more times and never won another race.

Capote came along at a time when the Derby was frustrating Lukas. He had already won two of his four Preaknesses, but he couldn’t crack Churchill Downs. Then Klein’s filly, Winning Colors, won the Derby in 1988. That ended an 0-for-7 streak for Lukas--seven Derbies, 12 starters--and gave him his first of three Derby wins.

His next two Derby winners--Thunder Gulch in 1995 and Grindstone in 1996--were part of an unprecedented streak: Six consecutive Triple Crown victories. The magic went away at the 1996 Preakness, but after winning that year’s Belmont with Editor’s Note, Lukas managed only one starter in the 1997 Triple Crown.

That horse, Deeds Not Words, preserved Lukas’ streak of having started at least one horse in the Derby 17 straight years, but even the glib trainer was unable to deflect the ridicule that followed when the colt’s name was dropped into the entry box at the 11th hour. Deeds Not Words, injured as a 2-year-old after beating Silver Charm in the first race the future Derby-Preakness winner ever ran, finished last at 32-1, beaten by 25 lengths.

There was widespread tarring by the press, and Lukas’ open-door media policy no longer applies. In a lengthy harangue that was published last year in the New York Post, Lukas referred to several reporters as “cockroaches,” and he currently is not giving one-on-one interviews to the Louisville Courier-Journal, the only daily newspaper in Derby town.

Meantime, Deeds Not Words, still winless since he beat Silver Charm and six other maidens on Aug. 10, 1996, at Del Mar, occupies a stall at Santa Anita. Not far away is Grand Slam, another sequel in the life of a trainer who is never without one.

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Wayne Lukas’ Triple Crown Victories

Wayne Lukas’ 10 wins in Triple Crown races:

Year Horse: Race

1980 Codex: Preakness

1985 Tank’s Prospect: Preakness

1988 Winning Colors: Derby

1994 Tabasco Cat: Preakness

1994 Tabasco Cat: Belmont

1995 Thunder Gulch: Derby

1995 Timber Country: Preakness

1995 Thunder Gulch: Belmont

1996 Grindstone: Derby

1996 Editor’s Note: Belmont