Departing's course changes once again

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Major League Baseball legend Yogi Berra famously said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it,” so that’s what Al Stall Jr. will do this weekend with Departing.

Stall, as savvy about the sports world as he is about training racehorses – which is considerably – is aware that the schedule he has mapped for Departing this year looks something like what Berra would have laid out. Stall has mixed the distances and surfaces for Departing the way Berra did his metaphors.

“It’s been a matter of circumstances, obviously,” Stall said this week at his Churchill Downs base. “We’ve run him on turf, we’ve sprinted him, and now we’re going to run him back two turns on the dirt. We’re just trying to find his niche. He’s a gelding, so we have the luxury of time with him.”

Stall will saddle Departing for the $175,000 Lukas Classic, the richest of three stakes on a Saturday card that concludes the stakes schedule for the September meet at Churchill. Stall had considered another Saturday race, the Ack Ack, for Departing but opted for the 1 1/8-mile Lukas Classic when it became known that Todd Pletcher will send Mylute – and not Golden Lad, as was originally planned – here from New York.

Pletcher said he was precluded from entering Golden Lad, a 5-year-old horse by Medaglia d’Oro, because a stallion deal was pending this week.

“Golden Lad has won three stakes this year and would have been really tough in there,” said Stall. “[His missing the race] is the kind of thing that makes you switch up your own plan and helps explain why Departing’s paper looks like it does.”

Departing, an earner of more than $1.7 million for owners and breeders Claiborne Farm and Adele Dilschneider, figures as a major contender in the Lukas Classic when stretching out from a fourth-place finish in the More Than Ready Mile on the Kentucky Downs turf. The 5-year-old bay was expected to face Mylute, Abraham, Geothermal, Ulanbator, and perhaps a few others in a lineup that does not appear as deep as the first two runnings of what had been known as the Homecoming Classic before it was renamed in honor of Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas for this non-graded renewal. Fort Larned, a Breeders’ Cup Classic winner, captured the 2013 inaugural, and last year Cigar Street defeated Departing, Call Me George, and Carve, all of them graded winners.

The Lukas Classic anchors an 11-race Saturday card that starts at 12:45 p.m. Eastern. The undercard stakes – both Grade 3, $100,000 races at a mile – are the Ack Ack for 3-year-olds and up on the main track (one turn) and the Jefferson Cup for 3-year-olds on the turf (two turns).

Sunday closes out the 11-day meet.

Big Hearted Gal tries again

Big Hearted Gal finished first in her career debut last month at Canterbury Park but nonetheless is entered Friday in the seventh race at Churchill, a 2-year-old maiden race comprised mostly of first-time starters.

The reason the gray Texas-bred filly remains eligible for the condition: Her race was declared a “no contest” by the Canterbury stewards when an opponent wheeled out of the gate from the No. 1 post and immediately started running riderless in the wrong (clockwise) direction.

Video of the unusual incident and a stewards’ explanation is available at canterburylive.com/2015/09/08/stewards-watch-no-contest.

Big night for Leonard

George Leonard doesn’t often attract the spotlight on the Kentucky circuit, so the veteran trainer was elated with winning two races here last Saturday night on the only Downs After Dark card of the September meet.

“It was a big night for our stable,” said Leonard, who competes primarily at Indiana Grand at this time of year.

Leonard sent out Lungs ($6) to win the first race and Have Faith Sister ($3.60) to win the fifth.

◗ Jockey Julien Leparoux and his wife, Shea, had their first child Monday when Mitchell Robert Leparoux was born in Louisville. The boy was named for Shea’s family, most notably her father, Mike Mitchell, the highly accomplished Southern California trainer who died this year.