Kentucky Derby report

Trainer D. Wayne Lukas and owner Willis Horton of Marshall each liked what they saw in Will Take Charge right away.
Trainer D. Wayne Lukas and owner Willis Horton of Marshall each liked what they saw in Will Take Charge right away.

Horton on same page with Lukas

Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas and owner Willis Horton of Marshall really wanted Hip No.

17 at the 2011 Keeneland September Yearling Sale.

Eventually, both got Will Take Charge, a multiple stakes winner who is scheduled to run in the $2 million Grade I Kentucky Derby on Saturday afternoon at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky.

Horton purchased Will Take Charge for $425,000 at Keeneland, outbidding, among others, Lukas, who trained for the owner during the 1980s.

Lukas said he was locked on the chestnut son of Unbridled’s Song but called an audible after spotting Horton about four or five seats in front of him in the sales pavilion.

“I’m bidding on this horse and here I see Willis sitting,” Lukas said. “I hesitated, bam, bam. I said, ‘Whoa,’ so I just pulled up and came down.

When he bought him, I said, ‘You just bought the best horse that I’ve seen.’ That was the end of it. I wished him well.”

Then last summer, Horton called Lukas, 77, and said he was going to send Hip No. 17 “straight off the farm” to the trainer.

That colt was Will Take Charge.

“We both had him picked out,” Lukas said with a laugh.

A retired home builder, Horton, 73, said he’s owned horses for approximately a half-century but was struggling so much during a time in the 1980s that he decided to change trainers.

Horton said he was on a scouting trip one morning at Churchill Downs and decided “the first best trainer I saw, I was going to hit him up and start training my horses.”

“Luckily, it was Wayne Lukas,” Horton said.

Horton and Lukas, a four time winner of the Kentucky Derby, spent several years together before the owner and his brothers moved their horses to trainer Dallas Stewart after he went out on his own in the mid-1990s.

Stewart had spent about 12 years as an assistant to Lukas.

“The Horton family, headed by Willis, went with Dallas with my blessing,” Lukas said. “I wanted Dallas to get a good start with his career, and these guys were good enough to back him.”

Stewart saddled the Horton family’s Lemons Forever to win the $500,000 Grade I Kentucky Oaks, the country’s biggest race for 3-year-old fillies, in 2006 at Churchill Downs.

Last year at Oaklawn, Stewart also won the $75,000 Bachelor Stakes with Laurie’s Rocket, owned by Willis Horton.

But Horton moved his horses to Lukas last summer after getting “a little bit crossways” with Stewart.

“I picked up the phone and called Wayne to see if he would take my horses,” Horton said. “He said he would be glad to.”

Under Lukas’ watch, Will Take Charge has earned $545,371, highlighted by victories in Oaklawn’s $150,000 Smarty Jones Stakes on Jan. 21 and the $600,000 Grade II Rebel Stakes on March 16.

“After I bought him, Wayne got out of his seat and came down to where I was at,” Horton said. “He said, ‘Willis, if this horse can’t run, me and you need to quit looking and just shut our eyes and buy one.’ ”

Deja vu?

Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens scored his second of three Kentucky Derby victories aboard Thunder Gulch in 1995.

The victory came three weeks after Thunder Gulch, ridden by Pat Day, finished a sluggish fourth as the favorite in the $500,000 Grade II Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky.

Stevens’ mount in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby, Oxbow, finished a sluggish fifth as the 3-1 second choice in the $1 million Grade I Arkansas Derby on April 13 at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs.

“I just remember back in 1995, a horse Thunder Gulch just threw in a sub-par race prior to the Kentucky Derby in the Blue Grass and came in here under the radar and wound up in the winner’s circle,” Stevens said. “I’m hoping for a little deja vu there.”

Stevens, who came out of retirement earlier this year, rode Oxbow for the first time in the Arkansas Derby.

The Awesome Again colt is a 30-1 long shot in the program for the Kentucky Derby.

Rebel yell

Will Take Charge is trying to become the third winner of the Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs to win the Kentucky Derby, following Sunny’s Halo (1983) and Smarty Jones (2004).

In his last start, Will Take Charge won the $600,000 Grade II Rebel on March 16 - Oaklawn’s final major local prep for the $1 million Grade I Arkansas Derby on April 13.

Sunny’s Halo and Smarty Jones also won the Arkansas Derby before winning the Kentucky Derby.

But Will Take Charge is being trained up to the Kentucky Derby after skipping the Arkansas Derby.

Sports, Pages 23 on 05/03/2013

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