2022 Kentucky Derby: Lukas attempts to buck trend with the filly Secret Oath
When Winning Colors won the Kentucky Derby in 1988, she became the second filly to win the Derby in nine editions, following Genuine Risk in 1980. But in 33 runnings since, only five fillies have attempted to win the Derby, a scenario that came to a screeching halt in the past decade, owing to a change in rules that made entry to the race equitable for all.
This year marks the 10th Derby to be run by Churchill Downs under the points system, and in that time not a single filly has run in the Derby. In fact, Devil May Care, who started in 2010 under the prior system – earnings in graded stakes – is the only filly to run in the Derby since Eight Belles suffered fatal post-race injuries in 2008.
That could change this year. D. Wayne Lukas, the Hall of Fame trainer who won the first of his four Derbies with Winning Colors, will test his filly Secret Oath against males in the Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn on April 2. A top two finish in that race would give her enough points to make the Derby field, and her connections would thus have to decide between that race on May 7, or facing fillies in the previous day’s Kentucky Oaks, a race for which she already has sufficient points.
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Getting in based on points earned in races designated by Churchill Downs has also served to reward more recent form, with preps increasing significantly in value as Derby Day draws closer. So the new rules had multiple advantages. Current form became more important than earnings gleaned in races months prior, perhaps even as 2-year-olds. And since the earnings rules allowed fillies to get in by running in graded races exclusively for females – which hardly seems fair to all nominees – it was a healthy byproduct of the new system to eliminate those races.
The points system has seemingly made owners and trainers reticent to even run fillies in final Derby preps, even though points earned by fillies in those races, according to Churchill’s rules, are added to their Oaks points tally, too. Consider that since 2013, the big six of final preps – Arkansas Derby, Blue Grass, Florida Derby, Louisiana Derby, Santa Anita Derby, and Wood Memorial – have had just one filly participate in a collective 55 races. That was Swiss Skydiver, who was second in the postponed Blue Grass in 2020.
What hasn’t changed over the decades is the willingness of Lukas to run a top-class 3-year-old filly against males. He’s run four fillies in the Derby, and every one had started against males at least once previously, with Winning Colors having captured the Santa Anita Derby in a runaway prior to her success at Churchill Downs.
In 1984, four years prior to Winning Colors, Lukas ran both Althea and Life’s Magic in the Derby. Althea had run four times against males before the Derby, three of those races at age 2, including wins in the Hollywood Juvenile and Del Mar Futurity. Secret Oath will be seeking to emulate Althea by winning the Arkansas Derby. Althea won that race only one week after finishing second in the Fantasy.
Life’s Magic had made three starts against males before the Derby.
In 1995, Lukas ran Serena’s Song, who had raced twice against males prior to the Derby, including a final prep in the Jim Beam, the forerunner to the Jeff Ruby, which then was run on dirt, and which she won.
Starting with Althea and Life’s Magic, four of the last eight fillies to run in the Derby have been Lukas trainees.
It wasn’t so rare in days of old to run fillies in the Derby. There were eight such runners from 1906 to 1918, six in the 1920s, and six in the 1930s. But there was only one in the 1940s, one in the 1950s, and none in the 1960s or 1970s. Genuine Risk in 1980 was the first filly to run in the Derby since 1959, and only the third since 1936.
Lukas – who beat Genuine Risk in a controversial 1980 Preakness with Codex, giving Lukas his first Triple Crown race victory – saw what Genuine Risk accomplished, called, then raised. In the 1980s, he began putting his mark on the Derby and the Triple Crown. His 49 Derby starters are now second-most all-time to his protégé Todd Pletcher. His four Derby victories put him in a tie for third, behind Bob Baffert and Ben Jones. And he was the winningest trainer of Triple Crown races, with 14, until supplanted by Baffert, who has 16.
Lukas, 86, doesn’t have the quantity of what he carried in his heyday. But his approach with quality hasn’t wavered. Perhaps it’s his secret oath to the sport.