Lukas among trainers skipping Saratoga or taking far fewer stalls
For the first time in more than four decades, trainer D. Wayne Lukas will not be stabled at Saratoga.
Lukas, who won six trainers’ titles at Saratoga from 1986-92, said he will keep his stable in Kentucky for the summer after much of his help expressed a desire not to go to New York because of the COVID-19 situation.
“The truth of it is my help was really, really getting to be a problem,” Lukas said. “They don’t want to go. I have really good help that didn’t want to go because of the harassment of going through the process, but they were also concerned about the publicity that New York State had with the amount of cases. We put everything together and we decided not to go.”
The Saratoga meet, which opens Thursday for its usual 40-day season, will be run without fans and under strict protocols for those who ship in from out of town. As of Friday, there had not been a decision on whether owners would be permitted to attend the races or morning workouts.
All people coming in from out of town must take a COVID test and anyone who tests positive would have to quarantine for a period of time.
Lukas said he would ship in horses for particular races as he saw fit and hopes to have a 2-year-old good enough to run in the Grade 1 Hopeful, the closing-day feature and a race he has won eight times. Lukas said whatever horses he runs, he’ll be bringing them himself.
“If we run one in anything, I’ll be standing there,” Lukas said.
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Lukas, 84, said it’ll be strange not being in Saratoga in the summer.
“I’ll miss it terribly,” he said. “I got some phone calls from some of the officials who said ‘It won’t be the same without you’ and that made you feel a little bit on the sad side. We’re going back next year.”
Lukas is not the only trainer who is either not coming or who is cutting way back on the number of horses stabled on the grounds.
Trainer Rusty Arnold said he is taking only four stalls this summer. Arnold said he has had the same 17-stall barn “forever” and has been renting the same house since 1985.
Arnold said he is going to stay in Kentucky for the summer as a result of not having enough stock to compete at Saratoga, getting his 2-year-olds in late, as well as the COVID-19 situation.
“I don’t know I was going to enjoy it without people,” Arnold said. “I don’t know what the town’s going to be like. It’s going to be tough with the protocols.”
Arnold said he may come to run a horse or two and plans to return full time in 2021.
Trainer Brad Cox was assigned 40 stalls at Saratoga. He will take only 10 and ship in and out from Belmont and Churchill. Cox said he has employees who, after they’re done at the barn in the morning, have second jobs on the frontside in the afternoon. Those jobs, such as busing tables at ontrack restaurants that will be closed this summer, are not available.
“It’s great to have 40 stalls up there, and it sounds good, but you can’t have 40 horses and two grooms and two exercise riders,” Cox said. “It made more sense to stay there at Belmont.”
Also, Cox said, “People are a little weird about moving right now.”
Several New York-based trainers will be severely cutting back the number of stalls they are taking at Saratoga and will ship up most of their runners from Belmont.
Linda Rice, who typically takes 50 to Saratoga, will only have 12 in Saratoga. Rice said she has employees with children who usually attend summer camp in Saratoga. Those camps are closed.
“It’s put a real burden on them, and with the owners and fans not allowed to come to the races, I said we’ll do it differently this year,” Rice said.
Jimmy Toner said he won’t take any stalls at Saratoga and ship up on race day. Jimmy Jerkens will take only six or seven stalls.
On Friday, Gary Sciacca was plotting out how many horses he was going to take to Saratoga when he got word that one of his employees tested positive for COVID-19.
“This is crazy,” Sciacca said, basically summing up 2020.