As a former basketball coach, Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas knows the
importance of having a deep bench and his appears to be quite full after Oxbow
and Will Take Charge both earned important Kentucky Derby prep victories and
points last weekend.
Oxbow easily won the Grade 3 Lecomte at Fair Grounds last Saturday, while his
stablemate Will Take Charge stayed home and won Monday’s $150,000 Smarty Jones
at Oaklawn Park. Each horse earned 10 points based on Churchill Downs’ new
system for making the Derby field.
Will Take Charge, who had a hard-fought battle to the wire, gave the trainer
some anxious moments after he stumbled pulling up, but was fine.
“He’s fine and was fine when we got him back to the barn (Monday) afternoon,”
Lukas said. “He must have just tweaked something pulling up from the race. We
jogged him in the shedrow this morning and he’s just great.”
Lukas will decide in the coming weeks where each colt will start next. The
next two options are Oaklawn’s Grade 3 Southwest on February 18 or Fair Grounds’
Grade 2 Risen Star on February 23. Another option is keeping at least one colt
out until the Grade 2 Rebel at Oaklawn on March 16.
“We’re kind of in limbo about where to go with these horses, although we’re
sure going to keep them apart as long as we can,” Lukas said. “We’re looking
ahead at the races at Oaklawn and the Risen Star at Fair Grounds. But I’m not
likely to run one horse in all four of these races at Oaklawn. On the other hand
we have at least one more (horse) that I like, who might be this kind, so we
have a lot of options.”
Meanwhile, a frustrated trainer Tim Ice reported Brown Almighty, the
stakes-winning three-year-old who finished a disappointing fifth in the Smarty
Jones, had a severe lung infection.
“He scoped a five out of five,” Ice confirmed Wednesday, two days after the
horse’s Twitter and Facebook accounts reported the test results.
The colt was making his dirt debut in the Smarty Jones after a successful
two-year-old campaign spent mainly in turf races.
“It was really frustrating because he never showed me any signs of it before
the race,” Ice said. “We got him back to the wash stall and he coughed twice
standing there. We scoped him and it was pretty severe.”
Ice said Brown Almighty would be treated with antibiotics. Next-race plans
are on hold, but they would compare the Southwest Stakes and the Risen Star
depending on how quickly the illness clears.
“We want to run in the Southwest, but it’s going to be a matter of how much
time he needs,” Ice said.
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