Oaklawn winner honors an absent friend

Last Samurai, under Cristian Torres, wins the Grade 3 $600,000 Razorback Handicap Saturday at Oaklawn. - Photo courtesy of Coady Photography
Last Samurai, under Cristian Torres, wins the Grade 3 $600,000 Razorback Handicap Saturday at Oaklawn. - Photo courtesy of Coady Photography


At entrytime, Wayne Lukas was represented in the Razorback Handicap by two older horses with Arkansas owners, men both good to the game and Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort.

Circumstances prevented Caddo River from competing Saturday but his 85-year-old Hall of Fame trainer had an ace in the hole.

Last Samurai scored his third stakes victory in two seasons at the track where he lost in the 2021 Arkansas Derby, a setback which begs atonement.

In a race won last year by Caddo River owner-breeder John Ed Anthony's Plainsman, Last Samurai proudly wore the silks of the late Willis Horton of Marshall (Searcy County). The reigning Grade 2 Oaklawn Handicap winner showed that, at 5, he can still step out in style, outkicking the favored West Will Power. A 2022 Grade 2 winner himself (the Fayette in Keeneland's fall season), 8-5 favorite West Will Power sought to give trainer Brad Cox his second-straight Razorback win and third in four years

Still competing for Horton Racing Stables, now overseen by son Kevin, Malibu Moon's son made his Oaklawn record 3-2 from eight local starts, now with five wins in 23 overall. The chestnut is a millionaire in Oaklawn races alone after collecting $366,000 from the 64th Razorback.

Lukas, who because of broken ribs uses a cane but shows few other allowances to age or physical condition, won the Razorback previously with Imp Society in 1985. If that doesn't date you, Imp Society had the riding services of Hall of Famer and 12-time Oaklawn champion Pat Day, a year before his track-record 137 victories and first of three Arkansas Derby wins.

Last ridden by the flamboyant Frankie Dettori when fourth of 12 in Gulfstream Park's Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Invitational Jan. 28, Last Samurai breezed a half-mile at Oaklawn eight days before the Razorback. With leading rider Cristian Torres aboard, Last Samurai avenged his seventh-place finish in the same race last year and third-place effort behind West Will Power in the Fayette.

"He got an excellent ride from Cristian," said Lukas. "We wanted to make sure he had a place to run. That's all we asked him. We said he might not get away very well and he didn't. We just said, 'Give us a place to run. He'll keep coming. Don't quit on him.' That's exactly the way the race unfolded."

Winning by a length and a quarter over tiring West Will Power with Law Professor third, Last Samurai was clocked in 1:42.19 for his first mile-and-sixteenth race since the 2022 Razorback. After losing the Arkansas Derby to Super Stock in April 2021, the Horton horse took the six-furlong Renaissance in December and the nine-furlong Oaklawn Handicap in April 2022. He bounced back in the latter race after missing by a neck to marathoner Lone Rock in the mile-and-a-half Temperence Hill 19 days earlier.

Lukas saw enough from a second in the Dec. 17 Tinsel at Oaklawn, followed by a "bullet" five furlongs in 59.40 seconds Jan. 21, to consider the Pegasus. There, as in a Grade 2 race in August at Charles Town, 6-year-old Art Collector, trained by Hall of Famer Bill Mott, was waiting.

Fifth Season winner Ginobili finished last of eight when "bothered" at the quarter pole under Ricardo Santana Jr., reads the Equibase Co. footnote. That came one day after multiple Oaklawn stakes winner C Z Rocket, who like Ginobili is trained by Peter Miller, finished second to Edge of Edge in the sprinter's first start of the year.

Ten-year-old Rated R Superstar picked off horses late, not getting the hot pace he needed, and ran fourth in the Razorback, just behind Rob Atras-trained shipper Law Professor.

Last Samurai paid $18.80, $6.40 and $3.60, keying a $1 exacta of $28.10 with West Will Power. The only missing link was Horton, claimed by pneumonia last October at age 82. Sunshine boys Horton and Lukas won championships in the 2010s with Will Take Charge and Take Charge Brandi, both horses winning Oaklawn stakes. Wanting only a place to run Saturday, their horse reaped a place in the sun on an otherwise overcast day.


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