Lukas Is Playing Catch-Up

It is seven Saturdays before the running of the 127th Kentucky Derby and trainer Wayne Lukas, as much a part of Churchill Downs as the twin spires, is not exactly playing the pat hand.

Lukas, who has won the Derby four times and not missed running at least one horse in the race since 1981, nominated 21 horses to the Triple Crown--more than Bob Baffert, more than Nick Zito, more than anybody--but his many prospects have not blown off any doors in the prep races.

Yonaguska, winner of the Hutcheson Stakes at Gulfstream Park in January, has distance limitations and wasn’t even nominated to the Derby, the Preakness or the Belmont Stakes.

Turnberry Isle, the only horse Lukas ran in the Florida Derby, finished 10th, was injured and won’t make the Kentucky Derby.

Gold Trader, a well-bred colt, won the Golden State Mile at Golden Gate Fields, but his assignment today is imposing--trying to defeat Point Given, one of the Derby favorites, in the San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita.

Gold Trader and Scorpion, a major disappointment as a 2-year-old, are the only Lukas trainees mentioned by the Daily Racing Form in its 25-horse list of Derby contenders. Scorpion, who hadn’t won a race in almost 10 months when he took an allowance at Gulfstream on March 3, will run Sunday in the Gotham at Aqueduct.

But remember this: Lukas doesn’t give up on horses willingly, and three of his Derby winners were colts that didn’t figure. In February 1999, Charismatic was running with $62,500 claimers at Santa Anita; in 1996, Grindstone ran in Louisiana and Arkansas as he took what appeared to be the softer route to the Derby; and in 1995, Thunder Gulch, while the Florida Derby winner, had been soundly defeated in the Blue Grass, his final Derby prep.

Lukas’ Derby strategy revolves around the philosophy that you can’t win if you’re not there, and he’s always there. He’s had 38 starters in 20 years, which is 14 more than Dick Thompson, the next trainer on the list. Thompson took on the nickname “Derby Dick” when he won the race four times from 1921 through 1933. After Lukas, LeRoy Jolley is the next active trainer on the starters’ list. And Jolley, who won the Derby twice with 13 starters, hasn’t sent a horse to Churchill Downs since 1992.

Today’s San Felipe, a prep for the Santa Anita Derby, is at 1 1/16 miles. It might be the first start in three months for the estimable Point Given, but for Gold Trader it will be only his fourth career start and his first try at anything longer than a mile.

His Golden Gate win, on an off track, was on Feb. 10. “He’s coming back off a five-week layoff, so you always have to be concerned about that,” Lukas said. “I’m not a great trainer off layoffs, but I just hope I have him tight enough for this one. It’s time that he steps up to the plate.”

There’s only time for one more pre-Derby start for Gold Trader after today. That means he would go into the Derby off only five career starts. Fusaichi Pegasus won the Derby after only five starts last year, and so did Grindstone in 1996, but before that the last horse to win the Derby in his sixth race was Brokers Tip--trained by Thompson--in 1933.

“Just like everybody else, I don’t know what to make of the favorite [Point Given],” Lukas said. “You just don’t know what to expect from a horse coming off that long of a layoff.”

Gold Trader is a son of Storm Cat and Golden Attraction, a Lukas-trained Mr. Prospector filly that won an Eclipse award in 1995. Storm Cat, whose offspring have earned more than $60 million, stands at William T. Young’s Overbrook Farm in Lexington, Ky. Young, who won his first Derby with Grindstone, bred and races Gold Trader.

Scorpion, a son of Seattle Slew, the 1977 Triple Crown champion, broke his maiden in his first race, last May at Belmont Park, but after that he had a long and disappointing New York campaign that crashed at year’s end when he finished near the back in the Champagne Stakes and the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

A six-race losing streak ended when Scorpion won by setting the pace at Gulfstream, and now he’ll be one of the favorites in the Gotham.

“Strategically, Scorpion seems to be better placed than Gold Trader this weekend,” Lukas said. “He’s going from seven-eighths of a mile to a one-turn mile, which is a logical progression. I think he’ll be extra tough.”

Lukas has a pair of Turfway Park-bound 3-year-olds that also might turn up at the Derby. Buckle Down Ben will run next Saturday in the $600,000 Spiral Stakes, a race Lukas has won twice. Michael Tabor, who won the Derby with Thunder Gulch, bought Buckle Down Ben, the Laurel Futurity winner, and turned him over to Lukas after the colt finished fifth in the Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream.

Running for Lukas on the Spiral undercard will be High Cascade, second to Hoovergetthekeys in the Golden Gate Derby but last in the Fountain of Youth. High Cascade could at least be a footnote to history. His only win from six starts came against maidens at Del Mar last August. Second in the race was Point Given.

Notes

Chris McCarron, riding Dyna’s Club to victory in Friday’s feature, chalked up his 6,990th win. He’s 10 away from becoming the seventh jockey to reach 7,000. . . . Thirteen horses are expected to run next Saturday in the $6-million Dubai World Cup in the United Arab Emirates. Captain Steve is listed as the 3-2 favorite by the Coral Eurobet bookmaking firm. Best Of The Best, who has won over the Dubai track, is 2-1, and Aptitude is 11-2.