Point Dume, Happy Strike take different roads to Claiming Crown

Happy Strike cost $6,000 as a yearling purchase at Keeneland’s 2022 September sale. At the same auction, Point Dume cost $450,000.

The two horses and 12 others square off in Saturday’s $200,000 Jewel, the most lucrative of the eight races comprising the $1.1 million Claiming Crown Saturday at Churchill Downs. As the late, great D. Wayne Lukas used to say: “People have opinions; horses have the facts.” Once the starting gate opens, the price paid for horses as youngsters has little relevance.

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“That’s exactly right. Price doesn’t matter. This horse isn’t 100-percent correct,” said Dewaine Loy, owner and trainer of Happy Strike, who comes into the Jewel off four straight wins at Prairie Meadows in Iowa. “He kind of toes in a little bit. This horse would have brought a lot more money (otherwise). That’s kind of what we look for at the sale. You get a horse that’s well-bred, a little crooked-legged, they sell for a lot cheaper, because the guys who are going to spend a lot of money want a horse that’s 100-percent correct. And they may not hold up as long as this horse.”

“It just goes to show that every horse, when given the right situation and put in the right spot, can be a star,” said David Bushey, managing partner of Bush Racing Stable, Point Dume’s ownership that claimed the well-bred gelding for $40,000 four races ago at Penn National. “That’s the beauty of the Claiming Crown. You’ve got $4,000 horses and you’ve got $40,000 horses.”

And in this case, a $400,000-plus horse. 

Both Happy Strike and Point Dume are giving their owners their first Claiming Crown starter. Loy and Bushey use similar analogies to describe what it means to be in the annual celebration of American racing’s workhorses that fill out the weekday cards outside the spotlight. But Saturday at Churchill Downs, the host for the third time in four years, about 100 current and former claimers will be front and center, with extensive coverage from TwinSpires and FanDuel TV. Tomorrow’s weather-related cancellation of Del Mar’s races will only add attention to the Claiming Crown, whose full fields provide terrific wagering opportunities.

Churchill Downs’ first post is 1 p.m. EST, with the Claiming Crown going as races 4 through 11. The $300,000 Chilukki Stakes (G3) for fillies and mares also is featured, positioned as the third race.

“We aren’t going to have a Kentucky Derby horse, I’m sure, not buying them for $6,000,” Loy said. “This will be our Kentucky Derby.”

Making the Claiming Crown fulfills a long-time dream for Bush Racing, which was started in 2004 by Bryan Bushey, David’s dad. Point Dume has won his last two starts, a starter-allowance race for horses that had raced at Delaware Park in 2025 (in which Point Dume defeated Jewel contender Cadet Corps) and a $75,000 stakes at Parx.

“We started as a one-horse stable; we’re 15 horses now,” David Bushey said. “The Claiming Crown is kind of a bucket-list thing for us. I went to Gulfstream for five years for the Claiming Crown, standing, watching as a racing fan, envisioning at some point we’d have a horse there. This is a dream for us.”

Point Dume is a son of international stallion sensation Into Mischief and out of a Malibu Moon. He was purchased as a yearling by the deep-pocketed partnership of SF Bloodstock, Starlight Racing and Sol Kumin’s Madaket Stables and went to Bob Baffert. Those owners buy and compete in racing’s highest echelons and sent Point Dume to a Mid-Atlantic trainer after he failed to hit the board in three starts in California. He was promptly claimed out of a $30,000 maiden-claiming race. Fast forward 18 races, and Bush Racing got Point Dume for the $40,000, a hefty claiming price at Penn National.

“For people who do what we do, this is like the Breeders’ Cup,” David Bushey said. “Like many of us, we’re just blue-collar owners. We’re never going to have a horse in the Breeders’ Cup. We don’t buy 2-year-olds; we don’t have 3-year-olds. So having a horse like this in the Claiming Crown on such a big stage is just really important for us.

“Getting here is important. Winning would be icing on the cake.”

Loy bought Happy Strike, a son of champion sprinter Runhappy, earlier this year off the previous owner, who was taking a pause from the sport. Happy Strike was one of three horses that Loy acquired for a total of $38,000. The other two have yet to run. Moving with Loy’s stable from Oaklawn Park to Iowa’s Prairie Meadows, the gelding has won four straight heading into the 1 1/8-mile Jewel, most recently an open allowance race that left Happy Strike 7 for 14 in his career.

“We thought we had a nice colt,” Loy said. “It’s just hard to tell. He’s real lazy in the mornings as far as training. So he really surprised us. The first (five) races he ran, he won two of them. He just got good. He still runs with his ears kind of pricked. We haven’t found the best of him yet, I don’t think. We’re going to have to have it Saturday.”

Taylor Loy, the trainer’s wife, is an integral part of the stable, the two handling all the care for Happy Strike on the road. Dewaine said Taylor talked him into running in the Claiming Crown.

“I said, ‘You know what? This is a good chance. My horse is really good; we’ll give it a try,’” Loy said. “We own him, so I’m not going to get fired after it… He’s made enough money this year to give him a chance, so why not?”