Oaklawn Park: Car dealer Landers comes to love horse power

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Steve Landers knows fast cars, and apparently, fast horses.

Landers is a prominent automobile dealer who after three weeks of racing at Oaklawn Park is tied atop the owner standings with Danny Caldwell. Landers has won 5 races from 19 starters, for stable earnings of $78,739. He is back in racing for the first time since the 1980s.

“It’s started out more than I expected,” Landers said of the meet. “We had three wins on the first day. That was a pretty good start.”

It was at Oaklawn a year ago that Landers, 60, met with trainer Cody Autrey, 34, to hatch a plan to be part of this year’s meet. The approach has been to claim and privately purchase horses of racing age, something Autrey started doing on behalf of Landers last summer in Southern California.

“I don’t fish, I don’t hunt, so this is kind of a hobby,” Landers said. “It’s an expensive hobby, and so you’ve got to have winners.”

Landers said the purses at Oaklawn and his familiarity with the track, located in his native Arkansas, were reasons he wanted back in the game after dabbling in it with his late father, Bob Landers.

“My dad liked racing and I bought a few horses with him,” Landers said. “I’ve never been in them like I am now. We’ve got probably 25 to 28 head of horses now.”

In many ways, Landers operates in racing the same manner he operates in the auto industry.

“We’re going to be buying and selling, kind of like the car business,” Landers said. “That’s what we do, buy and sell, so it’s kind of in our blood.”

Landers owns dealerships in Arkansas, as well as Brazil and Mexico City.

Landers has claimed five horses at the current meet, ranging in price from $7,500 to $30,000. As for horses that retire from his program, Landers has already made arrangements for them to take up residence with a hunter-jumper operation in Little Rock, Ark.

“We need more people in racing like him,” Autrey said.

“He’s a big figurehead in Arkansas. A very personable guy.”

Landers is quick to credit Autrey, the current leading trainer at Oaklawn, and Norberto Arroyo, Jr., the meet’s leading rider, for his success at Oaklawn.

“Cody does a good job with the horses, and I got a good jock with Norberto,” Landers said. “I’ve got a pretty good combination; got a pretty good team going. It’s kind of a like a football team. It’s not a one-man deal. Cody’s got a good barn, good help, and so everything’s going well.”

Landers will have his next Oaklawn starter in the first race Friday.

Prep for Bayakoa

Trans Continental has more natural speed than some of her rivals in the eighth race Thursday, and as such she might get an ideal tracking trip behind stakes winners Amie’s Dini and Our Domain, as well as Fair Grounds shipper Tapit’s World. The second-level allowance for fillies and mares will be run at 1 1/16 miles.

“I look for some out of here to go in the Bayakoa,” said Oaklawn racing secretary Pat Pope.

The $100,000 Bayakoa, a 1 1/16-mile race for fillies and mares, will be run on Feb. 16.

Trans Continental will be making her first start since Nov. 6, when she was second in an optional $62,500 claimer at Churchill Downs. She set the pace to the late stages of the 1 1/16-mile race. Alex Birzer has the mount for trainer Phil Sims, who is 3 for 11 at Oaklawn.

Amie’s Dini will be stretching out around two turns to a distance where she is a stakes winner, after running fourth to Apropos in an allowance sprint at Oaklawn on Jan. 12. Apropos returned to win last weekend’s $100,000 American Beauty.

As for Amie’s Dini, she is entered in the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky winter mixed auction in Lexington on Feb. 9-10. Channing Hill has the mount for trainer Wayne Catalano.

Emigh now at Oaklawn

Jockey Chris Emigh will be aboard last-out stakes winner Our Domain in the eighth race Thursday. He has moved his tack to Oaklawn after being based at Hawthorne, said Randy Curran, the agent who will represent the rider in Hot Springs. Curran is also agent for Floyd Wethey Jr.

Emigh has gotten off to a good start upon his return to Oaklawn, winning two allowances from nine starts. He has four mounts Thursday, with Our Domain one of two horses he will be aboard for a longtime patron, trainer Scott Becker.

◗ The $100,000 Martha Washington for 3-year-old fillies at a mile on Saturday has a potential field of eight to 10 starters, according to Pope.