Belmont Musings - June 1

- D Wayne Lukas has this website at www.dwlukas.com. He’s totally in bed with youbet.com - it’s some kind of joint venture. They have two big banner ads on the front page and a picture of the “Hall of Fame Horse Trainer” sporting a youbet.com hat and a youbet.com sweatshirt, and I’ve seen him on TV with the hat as well. He has this page called "Wisdom," on which he shares his thoughts on subjects such as 'employees' (Gloom and doom mumbling makes for doom and gloom mumbling horses." ), 'life' ("Just because you win doesn't make you a winner; and just because you lose doesn't make you a loser."), and, of course, 'youbet.com' ("Youbet represents the future of our business."). He doesn’t explain anywhere on the site why he kept running Going Wild, but it does list his phone number as (562) 799-9206, so give him a call and ask. The fact that he’s considering running A.P. Arrow in the Belmont off his maiden win seems normal after the aforementioned fiasco. He got his maiden win in the slop at Churchill at a mile and a quarter against 5 challengers with an 88 fig.

This is quite a well-bred colt, an Allen Paulson homebred by Belmont winner A.P. Indy out of a Mr. Prospector mare. He’s a half brother to millionaire Geri and several other nice winners. His second dam is the stakes winner Far Flying; and his third dam is the unraced but prodigious producer Nalees Flying Flag, who in addition to Far Flying produced champion filly Sacahuista as well as Johns Treasure, who did not win a stakes but ran second by 1 1/4 lengths in the 1986 Belmont to Danzig Connection, the last of Woody Stephens’ five consecutive Belmont winners. Danzig Connection went off at 8-1, and I remember that the “smart guys” like me were figuring that only a romantic or an idiot would think that Stephens would win this one. The only other of the five that went off above 5-2 was the first one, Conquistador Cielo, who dominated over a sloppy track at 4-1. He had won the Met Mile five days earlier, and I seem to recall Andy Beyer saying he couldn’t win....or maybe it was because his dosage was over, but there was some dumb reason he was supposed to lose that I fell for, and I recall hanging my head after that one.

Excellent job by the Form, they have the pp’s for the prospective Belmont field available for free here (pdf). What really jumps out right away is that 114 Beyer on Oratory in the Peter Pan, who is included in the pp’s even though he apparently isn’t running. Even with him out, Peter Pan second place runner Reverberate has the second best Beyer fig in this field. He’s another one by a Belmont winner, his sire being Thunder Gulch. He’s out of a mare by the Darby Dan star and 1986 BC Classic winner Proud Truth, who I don’t notice much in pedigrees. He’s listed in the stallion register as still doing stud duty in Panama for $5,000.