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 Similar paths Lukas hoping to repeat success of Preakness 1995
Posted: Friday May 14, 1999 04:33 PM
BALTIMORE (AP) -- Their names are Charismatic and Cat Thief, not Thunder Gulch and Timber Country. But trainer D. Wayne Lukas sees a lot of similarities between his two Preakness starters and the pair he ran in 1995. He wouldn't mind a similar result, either. That would be a win by Cat Thief, third in the Kentucky Derby, and a third by Charismatic, the Derby winner. That was how Timber Country and Thunder Gulch switched places for Lukas four years ago. This doesn't mean Lukas thinks Charismatic can't win the Preakness on Saturday at Pimlico. He just thinks Cat Thief can. Charismatic won't be the favorite for the 1 3/16-mile classic, but then no Derby winner has been the Preakness favorite since Go for Gin, who finished second in 1994. The odds on Charismatic, however, will be far, far shorter than his 31-1 in the Derby. The expected favorite is Derby runner-up Menifee, beaten by a neck by Charismatic. "I feel confident I got my horses good, and they certainly could win," said Lukas, who has been intimately involved in Triple Crown racing for 20 years and knows the pitfalls all too well. Charismatic and Cat Thief will be his 24th and 25th starters in his 17th Preakness. He has trained winners of four Derbys, four Preaknesses and three Belmonts. Four years ago, after Thunder Gulch won the Derby and Timber Country won the Preakness, Thunder Gulch went on to win the Belmont Stakes, making Lukas a Triple Crown trainer without a Triple Crown champion. "Everything in these horses is very similar," Lukas said Friday when asked to compare his two starters Saturday with the two in 1995. The roads Cat Thief and Timber Country traveled to the Preakness are very similar. "He ran in three prep races [before the Derby] and didn't win," Lukas recalled of Timber Country, who was third, second and fourth in those starts. Cat Thief posted two seconds and two thirds in four starts before the Derby. In his last four starts, all Grade I stakes, he was beaten by a total of 3 1/2 lengths. "Cat Thief's best race of the spring was in the Derby and I hope he can move up a notch," Lukas said of the colt, owned by William Young. "I think he's achieved a lot. It's hard to be really critical of him." Elliott Walden, Menifee's trainer, has his eye on Cat Thief. "I think the horse to beat is Cat Thief," he said. "He is a model of consistency. People kind of forget about him because he never got the top price." Charismatic, purchased by Bob and Beverly Lewis for $200,000 as a weanling, will be racing for the fourth time in 42 days. After finishing fourth in the Santa Anita Derby on April 3, he won the Lexington on April 18 at Keeneland and then the Derby on May 1. "Most of these horses he beat I don't think could stand that," Lukas said of the strapping chestnut's grueling campaign. Charismatic looks none the worse for wear. "I feel good about the horse. I think he's peaked at the right time," Lukas said. Much has been made of Charismatic running for a $62,500 claiming tag in February, but that figure is almost four times what Mike Pegram paid for Real Quiet, the 1998 Kentucky Derby-Preakness winner. Trainer Bob Baffert will try for his third straight Preakness victory -- he also won in 1997 with Derby winner Silver Charm -- with the filly Excellent Meeting, fifth in the Derby. Baffert and Pegram, however, scratched Silverbulletday after that sensational filly drew the No. 14 post. That left a field of 13 3-year-olds, but most likely only 12 will go to the post. Trainer Carl Nafzger has said Vicar would not start from the No. 13 post, but the colt remained in the field Friday. With Silverbulletday out, Gary Stevens will ride Stephen Got Even, the Gallery Furniture.com Stakes winner, who was 14th in the Derby. Of the competition, Lukas said, "I can see where you can make Menifee the favorite." "If he runs that race [the Derby] back, he'll be very hard to beat," Walden said. Lukas also expects a big effort by Worldly Manner, who finished seventh in the Kentucky Derby in his first official start of the year. The colt, owned by the Godolphin Racing stable of the Maktoum family of United Arab Emirates, won a 1 1-8-mile trial race March 21 in Dubai. "I think he'll be tough," Lukas said of Worldly Manner, who was a head in front at the top of the stretch in the Derby. "This race fits him real well." "We were pretty excited at the quarter pole," said Tom Albertrani, a Godolphin assistant trainer. "In the last 100 yards he got a little too weary. You can certainly say he should improve off that race."
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