Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Lukas Classic a pivotal race for Mind Your Biscuits
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Chad Summers is poised to saddle a horse for a Churchill Downs race for the first time, but this is hardly his first visit to the historic track.
Summers, 33, has attended a half-dozen runnings of the Kentucky Derby since 2001, when he and his father and brother ventured as novice fans from their Long Island, N.Y., home to sit in the rafters of Section 325, high across from the quarter pole.
His vantage point, you might say, has improved substantially since then.
Summers will send out Mind Your Biscuits as the heavy favorite in the Grade 3, $200,000 Lukas Classic, the highlight of an 11-race card Saturday night under the Churchill lights. Summers has been on an astounding climb the last couple of years as the original buyer, co-owner, and now the trainer (for the last 10 starts) of Mind Your Biscuits, the alltime leading earner among New York-breds, with a bankroll of $4,159,286.
“I’ve been blessed,” said Summers. “We came here as fans, knowing nobody, and now here we are with this great horse. It’s unbelievable.”
Mind Your Biscuits, with Tyler Gaffalione to ride, will break from post 6 in a field of eight older horses in the Lukas Classic, a 1 1/8-mile race that Summers said will determine which Breeders’ Cup race (Classic, Dirt Mile, or Sprint) will be chosen for the 5-year-old horse. First post Saturday is 6 p.m. Eastern, with the Lukas going as race 9 (10:11).
“Right now, we’re 33.33 percent for every race,” said Summers. “Everything depends on what we see out of him Saturday night.”
Honorable Duty (post 1, Corey Lanerie), the 2017 winner for trainer Brendan Walsh, is among the opposition in the Lukas Classic, which was first run in 2013 to honor active Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas.
The other Saturday night stakes are the $100,000 Jefferson Cup (race 7, 9:05), which drew 10 3-year-old turf horses; the Grade 3, $100,000 Ack Ack (race 8, 9:39), which has Awesome Slew, Giant Expectations, and Seeking the Soul among a field of seven going a one-turn mile; and the Grade 1, $100,000 President of the United Arab Emirates (race 10, 10:42) for Arabians.
This will be the 48th Downs After Dark card at Churchill and the fourth (and last) this year. General admission is $10. TVG will have full coverage on its main channel.
Goetz seeks fifth training win
Monnie Goetz will be on the ground, not astride her popular pony Harley, prior to the first race Friday at Churchill. Goetz will saddle Cedar Creek for the $10,000 starter allowance while taking a short break from her self-owned pony service, which accompanies most Churchill runners to the starting gate.
“I’ve trained a horse or two my whole life since I was a little girl in Nebraska,” said Goetz, whose 88-year-old father, retired trainer Tom Hawkins, is a co-owner in Cedar Creek. Hawkins moved several years ago to the Mount Washington, Ky., farm owned by Monnie and her husband, Steve Goetz. “It’s fun to have one on your own to kind of break up the routine. It picks your head up.”
Goetz, 58, has four wins as a trainer, the latest coming in August with Cedar Creek on the Ellis Park turf.
“I really think he’s better on dirt,” she said. “This is a tough race, but I feel like he’s going to run big.”
After the race, Goetz will be back at her regular job, which typically requires her to awaken at 3:30 a.m. and lasts past sundown. She has become a legend among horsemen – while Harley, a 7-year-old mixed breed who stands 17-2 hands and weighs 2,000 pounds, is not far behind. “He’s something else,” said Goetz with a laugh.
FallStars Weekend nears
Nominations have been released for the huge three-day FallStars Weekend (Oct. 5-7) which will kick off the Keeneland fall meet, and fans can expect some familiar names to resurface.
Four winners of FallStars stakes last year are expected to return in the same races – Whitmore (Phoenix), Suedois (Shadwell Turf Mile), Miss Sunset (Thoroughbred Club of America), and Bucchero (Woodford).
Ten stakes worth nearly $4 million will be run opening weekend, with nine of them being Win and You’re In events toward the Breeders’ Cup at Churchill. NBC will televise the Oct. 6-7 races on 90-minute shows. In all, 18 stakes will be run at the 17-day meet, which runs through Oct. 27.
Possibly off the turf Friday
Churchill purposely cards fewer turf races than normal at its September meet, mainly to conserve the turf course ahead of the fall meet (and, this year, ahead of the Breeders’ Cup). This week, following heavy rain for several days, that foresight should prove wise since a soggy course surely will preclude the two turf races scheduled for Thursday from being run over grass, and maybe even the one turf race scheduled for Friday.
Race 9 on Friday – a $58,000 first-level allowance that drew an oversubscribed field – is the lone scheduled turf event, and it will be run at 1 1/16 miles on either surface. It’s the second allowance on a 10-race card that gets under way at 12:45 p.m. Eastern. The other is race 3, a $62,000 third-level sprint that drew six fillies and mares.