Bravazo's new Oaklawn Park schedule 'the smart thing to do'
Bravazo’s home the next several months will remain Oaklawn Park.
Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas said this week that the millionaire Bravazo will target Oaklawn’s lucrative series of two-turn stakes races for older horses, which culminates with the $1 million Oaklawn Handicap (G2) on April 18.
A homebred for Brad Kelley’s Calumet Farm, Bravazo had been scheduled to make his 5-year-old debut in the $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1) at 1 1/8 miles Jan. 25 at Gulfstream Park. Now, Lukas said, it could come the same day in Oaklawn’s $100,000 Fifth Season Stakes at a mile.
“Got to thinking about it and this is a nice four-race series here,” Lukas said. “We’re coming off a long layoff, actually coming off surgery, and I think taking this approach, getting a mile under our belt, then a mile and a sixteenth, another mile and a sixteenth before we go out to a mile and an eighth, the big one, I think logically it’s the smart thing to do. No shipping.”
Owing to surgery to remove a bone chip from a knee, Bravazo started only twice in 2019, finishing fourth in the Pegasus World Cup, then worth $9 million, last January at Gulfstream Park and eighth in his comeback race, the Clark Stakes (G1) on Nov. 29 at Churchill Downs.
Following this year’s Pegasus World Cup, Lukas had ticketed Bravazo for the inaugural $20 million Saudi Cup – the world’s richest race – Feb. 29 in Saudi Arabia and the $12 million Dubai World Cup (G1) March 28 in the United Arab Emirates.
Now, Bravazo’s path to the 1 1/8-mile Oaklawn Handicap "will definitely" go through the Razorback Handicap (G3) at 1 1/16 miles Feb. 17 and the Essex Handicap at 1 1/16 miles March 14, Lukas said. The Oaklawn Handicap, previously worth $750,000, will offer a record purse in 2020.
“During the winter, there’s no three races that have the purse structure that Oaklawn has,” said Lukas, who annually winters in Hot Springs. “That’s a credit to Oaklawn, really, to have that purse structure.”
A son of Awesome Again, Bravazo has started only once at Oaklawn, launching his busy 3-year-old campaign with an entry-level allowance victory in 2018. Bravazo then won the Risen Star Stakes (G2) at Fair Grounds before taking on a number of top races for sophomores.
Bravazo has recorded three published works this season at Oaklawn, including a five-furlong move in 1:00.40 over a fast track Tuesday morning.
“The other thing that enters into it, it gives us a horse that’s probably going to be fresh and right on his game going into the Grade 1 season in the spring,” Lukas said of opting to stay home. “If we go to Saudi and Dubai, we would have to have some downtime coming home from there, I’m sure. I’ve never been, but my colleagues tell me that those horses have to have some downtime.”
Bravazo has 3-4-3 record from 18 lifetime starts and earnings of $2,009,528.