Lukas says Blue Grass not factor in determining Derby champion

KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Horseplayers searching for the winner of Saturday's Kentucky Derby should pay no attention to the result of the Blue Grass at Keeneland in the educated opinion of Going Wild's trainer D. Wayne Lukas.
"Throw out what [6-length winner] Bandini did," Lukas said Tuesday. "Throw out what Sun King did [finishing fourth]. Throw out what Consolidator did [finishing fifth]. The horses who ran well there come over here to Churchill Downs and you can't find them and vice-versa. The track there has been so hard to deal with. When they like it horses will run off by 8 or 10 lengths; others just struggle.
"The Blue Grass is a very prestigious race and it used to produce a lot of Derby winners. I just don't put a lot of credence in it now. I put more stock in the Wood, the Arkansas Derby and the Santa Anita Derby and even the Florida Derby."
Lukas, who has had a record 41 Derby starters and has won the race four times, said Consolidator is being retired after suffering a fractured sesamoid in his right front ankle during a Sunday gallop at Churchill Downs. That left him with ultra-longshot Going Wild, who finished a badly beaten fifth in Keeneland's Coolmore Lexington last time out.
High Limit's trainer, Bobby Frankel, put a knock on the Santa Anita Derby in dismissing its winner, Buzzard's Bay, as a non-factor in the Kentucky Derby.
"The Santa Anita Derby hasn't been a real strong race the last few years," he said. "It's like everything else in California -- there are no horses left out there."
"You keep entering and races don't go. I shipped eight out of there Sunday morning. I'm going to keep horses here in Kentucky over the summer."