Kentucky Derby 2023 contender profile: Lugan Knight
Lugan Knight's win in the Jerome Stakes on Jan. 7 at Aqueduct allowed the Goldencents colt to pass several tests on the road to Kentucky Derby 2023.
- He won his stakes debut and earned 10 points on the Derby trail.
- Perhaps more importantly to trainer Michael McCarthy, he won his first race stretching out to a mile.
"I was eager to see if he could stretch out to a mile, and he did," McCarthy said. "I was encouraged by the way he finished in his race prior to the Jerome, and then he had to show a new dimension winning the Jerome by digging in. I loved his constitution, and it felt like he always had the other horse (Arctic Arrogance) measured."
George Yager's BG Stables races Lugan Knight. BG Thoroughbred Farm is a stallion and breeding enterprise in Hemet, Calif., about 75 miles southeast of Santa Anita Park, but McCarthy said the veteran horseman was looking to diversify geographically because of the purses in Kentucky.
BG bred Lugan Knight in Kentucky out of the Speightstown mare Sly Roxy, herself out of the multiple graded-stakes winner Roxy Gap. It's a female family replete with synthetic and turf stakes winners, and McCarthy considered staying in Kentucky for the Tapeta path to the Derby through Turfway but liked the idea of the one-turn mile Aqueduct offers.
"If he shows up in the Gotham, then we'll take a look at the Blue Grass, as that gives us plenty of time (five weeks) to prep for stretching him out," McCarthy said. "If he's not a two-turn horse then there's plenty of options to fall back on, but if he runs well in the Gotham we'd have to give him a chance."
Lugan Knight's sire won is a two-time winner of the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile, his broodmare sire is a Breeders' Cup Sprint winner and champion male sprinter.
"The way he ran in the Jerome, I have no reservations about asking him to try anything," McCarthy said.
Lugan Knight has won both his starts when stretching out, first to break his maiden going 6 1/2 furlongs after a six-furlong debut and then to win the Jerome going from six furlongs to a mile.