Hall of Fame trainer Wayne Lukas says he'll have input but that owner Willis Horton will make the call on Take Charge Brandi's next start at Oaklawn Park.
Horton said Wednesday that he preferred to challenge males in the Grade 2 $750,000 Rebel March 14. That could set up a battle of champions between the newly crowned Eclipse Award-winning juveniles of 2014, male American Pharaoh and filly Take Charge Brandi. American Pharaoh, a two-time Grade 1 winner for Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert but off since September, is scheduled to make his 3-year-old debut in the mile-and-sixteenth Rebel.
Take Charge Brandi won her seasonal debut in Oaklawn's $100,000 Martha Washington Jan. 31 and had been penciled in for the Grade 3 $150,000 Honeybee March 7. Horton said Wednesday that it was "50-50" whether his filly, winner of four straight graded races including the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, would enter the mile-and-sixteenth Honeybee.
Lukas said Thursday that Take Charge Brandi will be entered Wednesday in the Honeybee, allowing about 72 hours for the filly's connections to decide "yea" or "nay."
"By then we'll know how each race is shaping up," said Lukas, whose Will Take Charge, owned by Horton, won the 2013 Rebel in his championship 3-year-old season.
Horton, said Lukas, will make the final call.
"All the votes aren't equal," the trainer said with a laugh. "I present the facts as I see them as a horse trainer, but the owner's decision will be his. Whatever he does, I will support."
Lukas has had success racing fillies against males, Althea tying Oaklawn's mile-and-eighth record (since broken) in the 1984 Arkansas Derby and Winning Colors becoming only the third Kentucky Derby-winning filly in 1988 -- the trainer's first of four victories in the Churchill Downs classic.
Lukas said in late December, after Take Charge Brandi completed her 2-year-old campaign with a second Grade 1 victory in California, that the long-range goal for the filly would be the May 1 Kentucky Oaks. Take Charge Brandi has 40 points toward a possible start in the Oaks and could gain 50 more by winning the Honeybee. She can earn 50 for the Derby by winning the Rebel. Points toward the Oaks are non-transferable to the Derby.
Although not tipping his hand, Lukas said Thursday that he and Horton, a retired housebuilder from Marshall, "are pretty much on the same page."
Interviewed on the track after the Martha Washington, Horton told Oaklawn TV personality Nancy Holthus that Take Charge Brandi might face males in the Grade 1 $1 million Arkansas Derby April 11. Lukas shrugged upon hearing those comments and told reporters, "He's just having fun with you guys."
On Thursday, Lukas said, "We're not at a point in our discussion where one of us is saying one thing and the other is saying the other. We're pretty good."
Horton also will have final say on who rides Take Charge Brandi next time, Lukas said. Jon Court rode the filly to a head victory over late-charging Sarah's Sis in the Martha Washington, when the favorite veered outside in the stretch going a mile.
* Lukas said he also plans to run Super Saks, a last-out 11-length Oaklawn maiden winner, in the Honeybee with Terry Thompson aboard. The Lukas-trained Mr. Z, third in Sunday's Grade 3 Southwest after a second in the Jan. 19 Smarty Jones, reportedly is headed for New Orleans and the March 28 Louisiana Derby at Fair Grounds.
* Street Strategy, a Feb. 28 foal, can give himself a birthday present Saturday in a $67,000 allowance/optional claimer, the second start of the year for the 4-year-old colt owned by Arkansan Dave Clark and trained by Randy Morse. Street Strategy is the 8-5 favorite in a field of nine older males going a mile and sixteenth. Hall of Famer Calvin Borel keeps the mount after a 4 1/4-length victory Jan. 30 at the same distance in the colt's first start since the March 2014 Rebel. The Grade 2 $600,000 Oaklawn Handicap April 11 could be in his future.
* Unless a sloppy track skewed his debut performance, the Rainbow Stakes favorite may have emerged in Thursday's seventh race with homebred Weast Hill ($7) romping home by 7 1/2 lengths against 10 other Arkansas-bred maidens. Jesus Castanon rode the Rockport Harbor gelding for owner Starsky Weast and trainer Brad Cox. The $75,000 Rainbow, for Arkansas-bred male 3-year-olds going six furlongs, is March 29.
Sports on 02/27/2015