Correction: Sunny’s Halo won the Arkansas Derby and the Kentucky Derby in 1983. The horse’s name was incorrect in one of the graphics that ran with this article. Another graphic did not make clear that Regret, the 1915 Kentucky Derby winner, was a filly.
There’s training up to a race, then there’s training up to a race like the Kentucky Derby.
Leave it to Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas to put a different spin on the arduous task facing Will Take Charge on Saturday afternoon at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky.
Since detailed record keeping began in 1929, no horse has won the Kentucky Derby with more than six weeks between its last start.
Owned by Willis Horton of Marshall, Will Take Charge hasn’t run since beating stablemate Oxbow by a head in the $600,000 Grade II Rebel Stakes on March 16 at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs.
That Rebel is seven weeks before the Kentucky Derby. Or is it?
“It’s not,” Lukas said. “It’s six, because the last week doesn’t count. When you get to that Saturday before the Derby, those five or six days don’t count. You’re just kind of in a holding pattern and holding your breath at that point.”
Clearly, Lukas, 77, is an optimistic voice of experience.
Lukas has started a record 45 horses in the Kentucky Derby, shares the record for most starters in a single year (five) and has won the race four times (1988, 1995, 1996 and 1999), second only to Ben Jones’ six victories.
Lukas’ first victory came with the filly, Winning Colors, whose final prep, the Santa Anita Derby, came 28 days before the 1988 Kentucky Derby.
Following a victory in the 1999 Lexington Stakes, Lukas wheeled Charismatic back in 13 days to capture the Kentucky Derby.
It will be 49 days between starts for Will Take Charge.
“I don’t know if it’s that challenging, actually,” Lukas said. “I think we’re able to do that. You always have to deal with the product you have in front of you. I think what we’re doing fits him very well.”
Immediately after Will Take Charge won the Rebel, Lukas mentioned passing a traditional final major prep and training the flashy chestnut son of Unbridled’s Song up to the Kentucky Derby.
Several factors led the trainer to the less traveled path.
Will Take Charge, whose markings include a large blaze and three stockings, secured a spot in the Kentucky Derby by winning the Rebel, which was worth 50 points under the new system to determine starting preference for the Kentucky Derby if it oversubscribes (20 horses is the maximum).
Lukas said he wouldn’t run Will Take Charge against Oxbow again until the Kentucky Derby and pointed the latter for the $1 million Grade I Arkansas Derby on April 13 at Oaklawn.
Will Take Charge was a candidate for the $750,000 Grade I Blue Grass Stakes on April 13 at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., but Lukas said he didn’t want to change surfaces before the Kentucky Derby.
Keeneland has a synthetic surface called Polytrack, while Churchill Downs, like Oaklawn, is dirt.
“If the Blue Grass had been on old, traditional dirt, I probably would have considered it,” Lukas said.
Ultimately, Lukas said, Will Take Charge needed more time to mature physically.
Already 17 hands tall, Will Take Charge is much more robust than Oxbow and flourished since the Rebel, Lukas said.
“When a horse is training, the nutrition that you’re giving them, if you’re working them hard, they don’t grow,” Lukas said. “If you stop on them on the heavy work, they’ll make a growth spurt. I thought it was important that I let him grow up a little bit.”
Lukas has worked Will Take Charge five times since the Rebel - the last a 5-furlong maintenance move Monday - and said he’s comfortable with his decision to train up to Saturday’s 1¼ -mile race.
So is Horton, 73, a retired home builder who purchased the colt for $425,000 at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale.
Will Take Charge has bankrolled $545,371 off a 3-1-0 record from seven lifetime starts. He also won the $150,000 Smarty Jones Stakes on Jan. 21 at Oaklawn.
“After the Rebel, we had secured enough points to get into the Kentucky Derby,” Horton said. “And we’d campaigned our horse pretty hard. I’d made up my mind that I wanted to go into the Kentucky Derby with a fresh horse.”
Will Take Charge will be Horton’s first Kentucky Derby starter.
Sports, Pages 15 on 05/02/2013