Trainer Kenneth Roberts Sr. finding success with Thoroughbreds

Trainer Kenneth Roberts Sr. has gone Thoroughbred.

Well, not exactly.

The champion Quarter Horse trainer has a division of 13 Thoroughbreds stabled at Delta Downs in Vinton, La., but he’s still fully active with Quarter Horses.

“I’m running a few Thoroughbreds at Delta,” Roberts said. “I kind of enjoy it. To me, they’re just a challenge to do it, and I’m kind of really getting involved. But I love my Quarter Horses, and I’m not going to stop with my Quarter Horses.”

Roberts said his brother inspired him to run some Thoroughbreds.

“He kind of went Thoroughbreds all the way, and I bought a few and I like it,” Roberts said. “I really like it.”

Roberts was the American Quarter Horse Association’s champion trainer in 2017. He has won multiple training titles in Louisiana, and has one of the sport’s top fillies right now in Lifeinthefastlanes, a multiple stakes winner who won all six of her starts in 2020.

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The Thoroughbred side of Roberts’s operation has gone 3 for 15 with its starters this meet at Delta. His first winner of the season was K R Lucky Day, a daughter of Itsmyluckyday who paid $72 taking a maiden claimer Dec. 1.

Other runners in the barn include Top Draw, an Into Mischief colt who ran third in a recent allowance at Delta. He was a stakes winner last year at Albuquerque, taking the Charles Taylor Derby. Roberts trains the horse for Brian Gunder.

“We just got him,” Roberts said. “We’re kind of figuring him out, just trying to feel him out and see what we could do.”

Roberts will soon see action at Louisiana Downs, which opens its Quarter Horse meet Jan. 23. The 46-date season runs through April 7. The most significant stakes during the meet include the Mardi Gras Futurity on March 27 and the Harrah’s Futurity on April 3.

“I’ve been in this over 50 years, and I’ve been real blessed in this business,” Roberts said of racing Quarter Horses. “And that’s probably the reason I’m trying to mess with the Thoroughbreds a little bit. They always told me if you train Quarter Horses, you’ll make a good Thoroughbred trainer.”

That’s a point that’s been famously driven home by Hall of Fame trainers Bob Baffert and D. Wayne Lukas – and more and more by Roberts.