Lukas Handicapping Angle

[Rupert Pupkin]

Lukas will not turn a horse out no matter what. He will keep injecting them and keep running them even with serious injuries. He will not stop running a horse until it is physically impossible for the horse to run. I don't follow the small tracks but I'm sure there are plenty of guys out there that do the exact same thing with $5,000 claimers. I'm not condonig it even with $5,000 claimers but I'm sure that there are guys that won't turn out a $5,000 claimer because they don't think it's economical. However, I am not aware of any trainer aside from Lukas that treats good horses in this way.
If you look at any normal trainer out there whether it's Pletcher, Baffert, Ellis, Canani, etc. if they have a decent horse and the horse has an injury, they will turn the horse out. In most cases, the horse will come back as good as ever. With all of these trainers, you will see their horses come back from 6 month layoffs, 9 month layofffs, and even 12+ month layoffs and come back as good as ever and have really good campaigns. You will never see this with a Lukas horse. The reason is because he won't turn the horse out until the horse is os badly hurt that the horse will never be the same. That is why you will never see a D Wayne horse come back from a layoff and have a successful campaign. When one of his horses stops running, they usually never run again. If they do make it back, they are usually so far gone that they don't last for more than 1 or 2 races.
So the Lukas handicapping angle is to know that if you ever see a Lukas horse coming back from a layoff, that horse will never be the same horse again. As I said, once in a great while he may get 1 or 2 races out of the horse but that does not happen that often and that is the best case scenario. You know that the horse is not coming back sound. That is definitely good information to have.