See what Gutiérrez plans for Letruska in 2021 ... and 2022

Letruska has not had a timed workout since she won her last race at Churchill Downs. She did not have a breeze before that race, either. Nothing between her last two victories that came only three weeks apart. Nothing in the three weeks since. 

Trainer Fausto Gutiérrez said there is nothing wrong. It is just that he is in no hurry to rush back a 5-year-old mare who one poll has declared to be the best Thoroughbred in the country.

“Now that she is in the first position, I need to use more strategy to check what is happening and who is in good form,” he told Horse Racing Nation and the VSiN racing podcast this week. “She just had races close to one another, so I’m planning to give her an official workout maybe 25 or 26 days after the Fleur de Lis.”

That means this year’s two-time Grade 1 winner who has been jogging and galloping every morning may be breezing at Keeneland late next week in preparation for ... well ... eventually the Breeders’ Cup. In between? Again, no decision yet. And no hurry from Gutiérrez.

That was not exactly the thinking last month. The horse who sensationally put Eclipse Award winners Monomoy Girl and Swiss Skydiver in her rear-view mirror in the April running of the Apple Blossom Handicap (G1) was suddenly very busy.

On June 5, Letruska avenged her only loss this year. Instead of conceding five pounds to 2019 Kentucky Oaks winner Shedaresthedevil as she had in their previous meeting, they carried the same weight. Letruska went out and won the Ogden Phipps (G1) by five lengths at Belmont Park.

Then defying conventional wisdom, Gutiérrez wheeled Letruska right back exactly three weeks later. With José Ortiz riding her as he had in New York, she cruised to a 5 3/4-length victory in the Fleur de Lis (G2).

Not that it was easy on Gutiérrez, who said he originally planned to start Letruska in last Saturday’s Delaware Handicap (G2). That was before he got a look at the so-so competition in Kentucky and made the deadline-beating decision to race sooner than later.

“This was one of the races where I was more nervous, because I know if something happened, the critics would be strong,” Gutiérrez said. “There is something to checking the (nominations). Another point is to see what is happening with the horse every single day. In that time she asked me to race. In the Phipps and the Fleur de Lis, she would have won very easily even if she did not make the best effort. Then the day after the race, she wants to go again to the track and to run.”

Gutiérrez said the Super Saver mare bred and owned by Mexican mining billionaire Germán Larrea Mota-Velasco is still itching to run. But what is that old cliché that starts “if the playoffs started today ...”?

“Right now I want to ask for the Breeders’ Cup to be run tomorrow,” Gutiérrez said. “It’s not easy to maintain a horse with the same form with the same level 12 months or 14 months.”

That is why Letruska’s next workout is in pencil – and the next race is not even in mind. There are candidates.

“One is the Personal Ensign (G1, Aug. 28) at Saratoga,” he said. “But I want to check first the results of the Shuvee (G3, July 25 at Saratoga). It will have a lot of very interesting mares. Maybe someone like Swiss Skydiver or other ones we know.”

While other trainers insist they concentrate only on their horses, Gutiérrez has a very different vibe. Ever genial, ever engaging, he freely admits he pays attention to the past performances and race schedules for Letruska’s rivals. He even reads the rankings, like the National Thoroughbred Racing Association survey that has had Letruska at No. 1 since Mystic Guide’s July 3 loss in the Suburban (G2).

He said he has even tracked Letruska’s progress in the older-dirt females section of the HRN Division Rankings, especially since she began her current 5-for-6 hot streak Dec. 12 with a Grade 3 score at Gulfstream Park.

“I started to have in mind what position we had a chance to be in after the Rampart,” Gutiérrez said. “I think we were in the first 20. Then 10. Then eight. I started to follow it all the time.”

After what might have been a humbling loss by a head March 13 at Oaklawn in the Azeri (G2), Gutiérrez tempered his expectations. In hindsight, though, that narrow defeat could be written off to the five pounds Letruska conceded to Shedaresthedevil. Likewise, Letruska carried six fewer pounds than Monomoy Girl when she hung that big exclamation-point victory April 17 in the Apple Blossom.

“For me it was a surprise after the Apple Blossom that she would go to the first position,” Gutiérrez said. “But I understand that Horse Racing Nation could be correct, because after that race and the next race, it’s hard to pass over the results that she has had.”

That top ranking is one factor in Gutiérrez exercising patience. Thus the Personal Ensign is not a slam-dunk entry. He said the Clement L. Hirsch (G1) on Aug. 1 at Del Mar is a choice if Letruska needs a race sooner. Or maybe the Zenyatta Stakes (G1) in September at Santa Anita if she does not need one until later.

“Another option that I may evaluate is to stay more relaxed and more quiet in the Kentucky area,” he said. “Maybe wait for Churchill to open again (Sept. 16) or Keeneland (Oct. 8) and then move toward the Breeders’ Cup. Right now I don’t have to decide what is next with her.”

As flexible as he sounds about the not-too-distant future, Gutiérrez was more firm about the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar on Nov. 6 – and beyond.

For instance, would he be tempted to look past the $2 million Distaff and send Letruska against males in the $6 million Classic?

“We’ll see what happens in the next one or two races,” Gutiérrez said. “If she looks very, very good, maybe we can think about that. But I think it would be easier when she is at the top of her division, it is correct to run with the fillies and mares. And why not? I think it’s better that you go in the group where you are the favorite in a very important division and a very competitive division.”

In the same stream of consciousness, before he was even asked, Gutiérrez volunteered plans for next winter.

“If everything is good like we’re planning and expecting, maybe we can try to go to the Saudi Cup (G1) or the Dubai World Cup (G1). This is when you can try it with the boys.”

So, yes, even before her 5-year-old season is completely mapped, Letruska is getting the green light to race at age 6.

“I think yes,” Gutiérrez said. “We have a mentality or a position that when we have the horse, and the horse is healthy and in condition, why not run again? We don’t have mares like this so often. If she’s in condition she needs to run again.”

Not bad for a horse few Americans had heard of when she won her first six races as a 3-year-old in Gutiérrez’s native Mexico. When she won her U.S. debut against Caribbean rivals in December 2019 at Gulfstream Park, she may have been regarded as just another standout in the mold of Gutiérrez’s Mexico Triple Crown winner Kulkulkán. Great in Mexico and against Caribbean competition, but not good enough in open company on this side of the border.

“It’s a very small group of horses that runs on a very nice track (in Mexico City) for very little money,” Gutiérrez said. “The average could be $3,500. There are only about 150 Mexican-bred horses born each year. In Mexico they don’t always want to recognize the importance of (Letruska). Never in history has a horse started her career in Mexico and then won a Grade 1 here. So what Letruska has done in this country has been incredible.”

Letruska has also given Gutiérrez, a perennial training champion in Mexico, the opportunity to put down professional roots in America. He tried to do that in Texas in the ’90s, when the main racetrack in Mexico City was closed for three years. But he did not have the horses. Or The Horse.

Now with home bases in Kentucky and Florida, Gutiérrez and Larrea Mota-Velasco are gradually building a U.S. stable around the mare who has led them on a trail covered in $1.6 million in earnings, including $1.3 million just this year.

If he has any advice for anyone who wants to follow in his footsteps, Gutiérrez said it is not to fear mixing it up with champions. Especially if one has a horse as good as Letruska.

“When she won the Apple Blossom, I checked how she ran with Swiss Skydiver and Monomoy Girl,” Gutiérrez said of that pinch-me, I-must-be-dreaming moment. “The real point is when you run among the champions and win, it makes a difference.”