Rattle N Roll, Americanrevolution need to step it up in Lukas Classic

Rattle N Roll turned in a slightly disappointing performance Sept. 2 in the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup. About three weeks earlier at Saratoga, Americanrevolution returned from a long layoff with a starkly disappointing performance in the Evan Shipman Stakes for New York-breds.

These are the two shortest prices on the morning line for the Grade 2, $500,000 Lukas Classic, the featured race Saturday at Churchill Downs. Both are worth trying to beat.

The Lukas Classsic, for older horses at 1 1/8 miles on dirt, drew nine entrants and is the last of three stakes, following the Jefferson Cup and the Ack Ack, on the final Saturday of Churchill’s brief September race meeting before the Kentucky circuit shifts to Keeneland.

Rattle N Roll is the 7-5 morning-line chalk in the Lukas Classic for owner Lucky Seven Stable, trainer Kenny McPeek, and jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. McPeek left the 4-year-old at Saratoga following the Jockey Club Gold Cup, and after posting two workouts there, Rattle N Roll shipped back to Churchill this past Monday.

“He thrived [at Saratoga] all summer. It’s a really good place to prep horses for later in the season. Now he’s back on his home course,” said McPeek.

Rattle N Roll has gone 3-1-2 from six Churchill dirt starts. He won a Churchill maiden race about two years ago and more recently captured the Blame Stakes on June 2 and a month later was a good second behind West Will Power in the Grade 1 Stephen Foster. Those were two of Rattle N Roll’s top showings and capped a string of five straight triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures for a colt, by Connect, who took a leap from age 3 to age 4.

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That form made him the 8-5 Jockey Club Gold Cup favorite, but Rattle N Roll could do no better than sixth, beaten 3 3/4 lengths.

“It was a combination of what could go wrong, went wrong,” McPeek said. “It was a paceless race, which is always a risk with a horse that has his running style, and then he got boxed in, couldn’t get out. He never had a chance to really participate.”

A handicapper scrutinizing the Jockey Club Gold Cup could come to a slightly different conclusion. While a slow tempo (the half-mile split was a tepid 48.86) aided front-runners, Clapton raced from last, behind Rattle N Roll, and despite losing ground on both turns rallied to finish fourth, 1 1/2 lengths in front of Rattle N Roll.

And while Rattle N Roll raced in traffic much of his trip and lacked clear passage at the quarter pole, Hernandez was riding his mount at the five-sixteenths marker to maintain a position Rattle N Roll was starting to lose. Once clear after moving back toward the inside at the three-sixteenths, Rattle N Roll didn’t mount much of a rally. His final quarter-mile, 24.54, was only the fourth-best finish, though the colt did gallop out in front.

Five-year-old Americanrevolution has hit a higher level than Rattle N Roll, winning the Grade 1 Cigar Mile in 2021 and twice finishing second last year – including in the Stephen Foster – behind Olympiad, who would be 3-5 in this race. Americanrevolution, by Constitution, didn’t start for the better part of a year and checked in fourth, beaten more than seven lengths, as the 2-5 favorite in the one-mile Shipman.

Americanrevolution did stumble at the start that day but cruised to contention into the turn before coming up empty in the stretch. The horse, always an unusual and awkward mover, does look like a heavier animal than he was at age 4, and perhaps he merely needed the race, but video of two subsequent workouts at Saratoga doesn’t inspire great confidence.

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Five Star General, winner of the Longacres Mile on Aug. 13, should set the pace, with Trademark and Blue Devil pressing and Whelen Springs not far behind. Whelen Springs has made remarkable strides since joining trainer Lindsay Schultz’s stable late this spring.

Second to Jockey Club Gold Cup runner-up Proxy in the Monmouth Cup, Whelen Springs beat Trademark by a half-length Aug. 19 in the Grade 3 Iselin at Monmouth Park. Jockey Jose Ferrer follows the horse to Churchill.

Happy American, third in the Stephen Foster last out, and Clapton are pace-dependent closers, though Clapton intrigues. Just a 4-year-old, the colt was privately purchased this summer and turned over to trainer Chad Summers, who won the 2018 Lukas Classic with Mind Your Biscuits. Clapton has more positional pace than he was able to show in the Jockey Club Gold Cup and wound up some seven paths off the inside rail turning for home while missing third by just a nose.

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