The Lukas Charts Analyzed

Here are the Lukas charts from Staaden's book for Slewbop and Success Express, both three year old colts. I'm too unfamiliar with my scanner to blow it up.

But, you'll see the races for the year at top and bottom and the June exercise program in the middle. For June you'll see a work or race listed about every 7-10 days. What's impressive is that the horses, all of them in every chart, do this work consistently until there's an injury. Slew Bob raced 15 times by September and won $100,000 total, and Breeder's Cup Juvenile winner Success Express raced 9 times and won $98,000.

My question would be whether, as I have asserted, it is possible to detect injuries from these charts. Both colts raced seemingly without injury right on through September.

The only way we would know their fate over the long haul is to look at the Equibase lifetime performances at $8.00 a pop. Just to see how it comes out.

I have decided to Equibase three of Lukas's horses on his charts. Instead of taking horses at random I decided to take the first three three year old colts listed. What happened to them is as follows:

Cougarized: He had 9 starts to a Delmar Allowance on 8/11/88 and won $89,000.00. On my Lukas stats I designated this horse as injured because nothing shows after 8/11. Let me now check Equibase to see if this is correct. Yes. Cougarized was injured. He next raced in April 1989.

Slewbop: He was presumed sound going into September. Let's see what Equibase says. Slewbop raced steadily every month after August 88 until his last race in June 89. This is one of the few three year olds that made it through the year racing. Slewbop is out of Seattle Slew out of Damascus mare. He raced 19 times in 88. Proof positive that if they can, Lukas keeps them racing, and if they're failing to race they're probably hurt. Slewbop raced 27 times total over three years and earned $126,000.00. Almost all of this was for Lukas. Another trainer had the colt in 1989 and in those six races he did nothing and was quickly injured. Lukas kept him running though even Lukas seemingly underperformed this regally bred colt. Lukas was far more successful than the next trainer.

Success Express: He was presumed sound going into September, though I note he never raced after 8/21. Let's check Equibase to see how he fared thereafter. Oooops. Add Success Express to the list of the injured. He never raced again. Was he merely retired. I doubt it. Revise my stats. Instead of 10 out of 22 three year olds racing through the year in the Lukas stable, it was 9 out of 22. Pathetic imo.

This is just a small sample. However, it completely supports the RR numbers on the Lukas stats of a few posts ago, and indicates that we can, pretty much, extrapolate injuries from Lukas's charts.

Today's Training:
1/29/07 Rest due to frigid conditions.
1/30/07 Rest due to weather.
1/31/07 A surprising 20 degrees. Good opportunity for light exercise and we engaged in about a 3 mile riderless pasture romp. The horses refuse to extend on the hard bumpy ground, so, this was as light as it gets and still consider it worth anything. On the plus side, Art might have shot up an inch or two. Did my eyes deceive me. I'll measure soon.