Saratoga 2022: Lukas thinks big as Summer Promise steps up
Forgive D. Wayne Lukas if he already is making plans for Summer Promise beyond Thursday’s Grade 3 Schuylerville Stakes at Saratoga. He is plotting a course to the season-culminating Breeders’ Cup World Championships.
That is the bold way the legendary trainer operates.
“I think big all the time. I treat them all like champions and let them disappoint me,” said Lukas, who turns 87 on Sept. 2.
He has had his share of disappointments, of course, but his go-for-the-gold gusto has helped him rank among the premier trainers of all time with a record 20 Breeders’ Cup triumphs and 14 victories in Triple Crown races, including four Kentucky Derbies.
“Once we see a little bit of brilliance,” Lukas said, “we start having grandiose plans.”
Lukas was inspired by Summer Promise, a dark bay filly by Uncle Mo out of the Grade 1-winning mare Dream of Summer, as soon as he laid eyes on her at Keeneland’s September Yearling Sale.
“She’s extremely well balanced,” he said. “I looked and I thought, ‘This filly has everything she needs to be a racehorse.’ ” He was so convinced that when he reviewed his shopping list with his client, BC Stables, he said, “Everything is right with this one.”
As the bidding escalated, they did not flinch. They finally landed the regally bred prospect for $500,000, and she did not take long to reward their confidence. She took control early for jockey David Cohen and continued to pull away in winning her debut by five lengths on June 25 at Churchill Downs.
Lukas is aiming to earn a record seventh Schuylerville win and snap a tie with former assistant Todd Pletcher. He is confident Summer Promise will rate if that is needed when she breaks from farthest outside in a field of nine. Luis Saez, the leading rider at Saratoga last summer, replaces Cohen in the irons.
“She’s very professional and not one-dimensional at all. She can be on the pace or lay off of it,” Lukas said. “She has all of the characteristics you want to see in a filly.”
Lukas could not have been more impressed by her debut. “She rated kindly and when he asked her to drop down and run, she opened up five, six, seven lengths in 60 yards,” he said. “You love to see that turn of foot.”
It is reminiscent of the burst Secret Oath has displayed on her finest days. She presented the octogenarian and the racing world with a feel-good triumph when she prevailed in the May 6 Kentucky Oaks.
“I got more response on that than any other horse or race I’ve had. I got texts and phone calls,” Lukas said. “The response was unbelievable.”
Lukas’ fifth Kentucky Oaks – and the early ability displayed by Summer Promise – serves as a reminder of how successful he has been through the decades with young horses in general and with fillies in particular.
Winning Colors (1988) is one of three fillies to win the Kentucky Derby since it was first held in 1875. Of the trainer’s unparalleled 20 Breeders’ Cup wins, three more than controversial Bob Baffert, six occurred in the Juvenile Fillies and four in the Distaff.
Perhaps talk of Summer Promise and the Juvenile Fillies is way premature for anyone but Lukas. She has much to prove in the Schuylerville, which features eight other debut winners. Mark Casse, another Hall of Fame trainer, will take three shots at her with Adora, Me and My Shadow and Janis Joplin, the lone maiden in the group.
No one would begrudge Lukas for dreaming big. He has often been absent from the big stage in recent years. Secret Oath will put him front and center again when she returns from a fourth-place Preakness finish to compete in the July 23 Coaching Club American Oaks (G1) at Saratoga.
“It really is a tremendous feeling to have a good one. It means a lot at this time in life,” said the resilient Lukas, hoping Summer Promise follows Secret Oath’s rise to prominence.