Lukas filly rocks BC toteboard
Never count out Wayne Lukas in a big horse race, especially if a world championship is involved.
The Hall of Fame trainer posted his record 20th Breeders’ Cup victory Saturday with 61-1 longshot Take Charge Brandi in the $2 million Grade 1 Juvenile Fillies at California’s Santa Anita Park. Winless in four races since her June debut at Churchill Downs and eighth last time out at Keeneland, the chestnut filly led from gate to wire and by a half-length at the wire, clocking a mile and a sixteenth in 1:41.95.
Ridden by Victor Espinoza, Take Charge Brandi paid $125.40, $ 51.40 and $ 24.80. Runner- up Top Decile, with pregnant Rosie Napravnik aboard, paid $7.20 and $5.40, completing a $778.60 $1 exacta with the winner. Wonder Gal, under Hall of Famer Mike Smith, completed a $1 trifecta paying $11,309. Favored Angela Renee, trained by former Lukas aide Todd Pletcher, finished 10th of 12.
Winning owner Willis Horton, of Marshall, raced the since-retired Will Take Charge, runner-up in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita. Horton paid $435,000 for Take Charge Brandi (Giant’s Cause- way-Charming) at the September 2013 Keeneland yearling sale.
Lukas got the go-ahead for the Breeders’ Cup despite the filly’s three poor finishes since a Grade 3 second at Saratoga.
“We never give up on one, especially if they’re bred this brilliantly,” the 79-year-old trainer said. “She’s got such a pedigree, and anytime I think you train a race horse and you see it at some point, you’re liable to get it on a given day.
“This guy right here (Horton) has supported me and believed in this filly from day one. So we agonized a little bit, and he called
me up and he said, ‘Let’s go.”’
Espinoza, who later rode Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner California Chrome in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, notched his second Breeders’ Cup victory, riding Take Charge Brandi for the first time.
“I usually give these guys no credit, but today I’m going to give this one a little credit,” Lukas said. “I always say in these big races, when … the game’s on the line, you have to have Peyton Manning or Tom Brady, or somebody that’s been there, done that, and that’s ride the track.”
Lukas thanked Horton and three of his late former clients — Eugene Klein, Robert Lewis and William Young — after his sixth Juvenile Fillies victory.
“This is where everybody wants to be,” Lukas said. “This is where this gentleman (Horton) believes he’s going to get when we pay that kind of money for a filly, and this is where we need to put him. And that’s what we’ve made a career of doing.”
Lukas winters at Oaklawn Park, winning this year’s Grade 2 Oaklawn Handicap and the 2013 Grade 2 Rebel with Will Take Charg. Take Charge Brandi thus becomes a likely candidate for Oaklawn’s 3-year-old filly stakes series in 2015, culminating with the Grade 3 $ 400,000 Fantasy April 4.