Stakes Are Raised for Lukas

Three weeks ago, trainer Wayne Lukas scored an unprecedented weekend sweep when High Yield, Cash Run, Exchange Rate and Shawnee Country won every 3-year-old stake at Gulfstream Park and the Fair Grounds.

This weekend, the table is set for Lukas to surpass that accomplishment at four tracks instead of two, with his invasion of the 3-year-old ranks spreading to Santa Anita and Bay Meadows.

The main events for Lukas are today’s $750,000 Florida Derby at Gulfstream, where High Yield is the 8-5 favorite; Sunday’s $750,000 Louisiana Derby at the Fair Grounds, where Exchange Rate is the 7-2 second choice, and the $300,000 Santa Anita Oaks on Sunday, when Surfside will be odds-on.

Today at Bay Meadows, Lukas will run True Confidence as he tries to win the $200,000 El Camino Real Derby. Shawnee Country is in New Orleans, trying to duplicate her Feb. 19 upset of Chilukki, in the $350,000 Fair Grounds Oaks, and also today Lukas is running the longshot Sun Cat at Gulfstream in the $100,000 Swale, a supporting stake for 3-year-olds on the Florida Derby undercard.

Lukas, who has won the Kentucky Derby four times, including three of the last five years, said this week that if the Derby were run this week, High Yield, Exchange Rate, Surfside and Commendable would be in it. Commendable finished fourth last Saturday in the San Rafael Stakes at Santa Anita, but was only a length behind the winner, the undefeated War Chant. Both Commendable and Surfside are Lukas’ ammunition for the April 8 Santa Anita Derby, which is run a month before the Kentucky Derby.

With all his stakes accomplishments over the last 23 years, it is difficult for Lukas to make many moves without tripping over deja vu, and this weekend overflows with a sense of the past.

At Gulfstream, High Yield will try to win the race that propelled Lukas’ Thunder Gulch to a victory in the 1995 Kentucky Derby. Grindstone, Lukas’ 1996 Kentucky Derby winner, won the Louisiana Derby. Charismatic, who won the Kentucky Derby last year, ran second--at 10-1--to Cliquot in the El Camino Real. And Winning Colors, saddled by Lukas in 1988 to become only the third filly to win the Derby, had won the Santa Anita Oaks seven weeks before.

There is a difference of opinion at Gulfstream about whether High Yield won the Fountain of Youth, on Feb. 19, because he was the best horse or because the track bias played into Lukas’ hands. Inside speed has been the order of the day for some time at Gulfstream--Anees’ astonishing run in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile being one of the notable exceptions--and the Fountain of Youth was a parade, with the first three finishers (High Yield, Hal’s Hope and Elite Mercedes) running in those positions all the way around.

Hal’s Hope and Elite Mercedes are back for more in the Florida Derby, which at 1 1/8 miles is 110 yards farther than the Fountain of Youth. Harold Rose, the 88-year-old veteran who trains Hal’s Hope, said his colt bled from the lungs in the Fountain of Youth and he’ll be treated with the diuretic Lasix today.

“I’ve been at it for almost 40 years, and this is the best horse I’ve ever trained,” Rose said. “He’s got the ability and the background to be a good horse. If he’d win the Florida Derby, that would be the peak of my career. In the last race, my horse moved up and looked like he was going to go by High Yield. That was the time that he bled.”

Hal’s Hope might have attracted some of the premier jockeys, who are vulturous for a Kentucky Derby contender at this time of year, but Rose, who also owns the colt, has been loyal to the lesser-known Roger Velez. For Velez, Hal’s Hope has three wins and one second in seven races, including a win in the Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream on Jan. 15. Velez, 43, has never ridden in a Kentucky Derby and he’s never been better than fifth with three Florida Derby mounts.

“He knows the horse,” Rose said. “He’s done well with him, and I can’t see any reason to change...

Although the Louisiana Derby has produced only two Kentucky Derby winners--Grindstone and Black Gold in 1924--Sunday’s 61st edition might be a tougher race than the Florida Derby, which lost one of its favorites when Greenwood Lake suffered a possible career-ending fractured ankle in a workout last Monday. The Fair Grounds race drew 10 horses, including Captain Steve and Tribunal from trainer Bob Baffert’s barn. Captain Steve, one of the early Kentucky Derby favorites, is the 2-1 favorite on the morning line, with Exchange Rate at 7-2 and More Than Ready, an invader from Florida, at 5-1.

Horse Racing Notes

Corey Nakatani, who is scheduled to ride Bare Outline, an 8-1 shot, in the Florida Derby and Exchange Rate in the Louisiana Derby, took off his mounts at Santa Anita on Friday because of a sore right hand, sustained during morning training. X-rays were negative. Nakatani, with $3.5 million in purses, has a lead of about $1.4 million over Jorge Chavez on the national money list.