Timber Country Gets Lukas, Day Out of Woods : Horse racing: Colt’s victory in Preakness justifies trainer’s faith, ends criticism of jockey. Kentucky Derby winner Thunder Gulch finishes third.

BALTIMORE —  Timber Country, the colt who had exhausted all of his trainer’s excuses, won the 120th running of the Preakness on Saturday, sending Wayne Lukas to the top of several pages in the Triple Crown record book.

Aggressively ridden by Pat Day, who was criticized by Lukas and others for his laid-back ride to third place in the Kentucky Derby, Timber Country blew past his stablemate, Derby winner Thunder Gulch, in mid-stretch and then held off longshot Oliver’s Twist for a half-length decision before 87,707, the second-largest crowd in the history of the race.

Oliver’s Twist, vanned to Pimlico from trainer Billy Boniface’s Maryland farm several hours before the race, was a 25-1 shot who finished a neck in front of Thunder Gulch.

By winning the Derby with Thunder Gulch and the Preakness with Timber Country, Lukas becomes the fourth trainer, and the first since Humming Bob Smith in 1934, to win the first two legs of the Triple Crown in the same year with different horses. Lukas indicated that Timber Country and Thunder Gulch will both run in the Belmont on June 10, when he could become the first trainer to sweep the Triple Crown with different horses.

Lukas saddled Tabasco Cat to win last year’s Preakness and Belmont, and his four consecutive Triple Crown victories tied the record set by Lucien Laurin when he won the 1972 Belmont with Riva Ridge and swept the 1973 Triple Crown with Secretariat.

A victory by Thunder Gulch on Saturday would have left him eligible for the $5-million reward that goes with a Triple Crown sweep, but Lukas was not disappointed that his two colts reversed their order of finish from the Derby.

“I’ve done the correct political and diplomatic thing,” he said. “I’ve got some very good owners and I made one of them very happy in Kentucky, and now I’ve made [four of them] very happy here.

“There was no pressure on me because of this situation. I just trained both horses as hard as I could. Then I told both jockeys that they were on their own. Both horses had legitimate shots at the eighth pole, when they were heads apart, and both riders were down on their bellies, trying to win. I’m excited about turning both of these horses loose again in the Belmont.”

Thunder Gulch is owned by Michael Tabor, and Timber Country, a $500,000 yearling, races for the partnership of William T. Young, Graham Beck and Beverly and Bob Lewis. The Lewises, from Newport Beach, were part of a phenomenal week at Pimlico for Lukas, who saddled their filly, Serena’s Song, for a nine-length victory Friday in the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes. Lukas also won the Miss Preakness Stakes on Thursday with Lilly Capote and, earlier Saturday, he won the $154,750 Maryland Budweiser Breeders’ Cup Stakes with Commanche Trail.

“After Commanche Trail won, I didn’t know how many bullets we had left in the chamber,” Lukas said. “But we had one more.”

The $687,400 Preakness was worth $446,810 to Timber Country’s owners as the son of Woodman and Fall Aspen scored his fifth victory in 12 starts. There are also four third-place finishes and one second on Timber Country’s record, some of those representing the king-sized frustrations for Lukas and Day when last year’s champion 2-year-old male went four races and 6 1/2 months without a victory. Timber Country shook off a jinx that has hounded winners of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile since its inception in 1984, becoming the first of that group to win a Triple Crown race.

On a fast track, Timber Country ran 1 3/16 miles in 1:54 2/5, a second slower than the record set by Tank’s Prospect in 1985.

Despite his losing streak, Timber Country was favored in the Preakness and paid $5.80 to win. The $2 exacta on Timber Country and Oliver’s Twist was worth $266, and the triple on the first three finishers, with Thunder Gulch going off the 7-2 third choice, paid $909.60.

Thunder Gulch finished four lengths ahead of Star Standard, the fourth-place finisher, who was followed across the wire by Mecke, Talkin Man, Our Gatsby, Mystery Storm, Tejano Run, Pana Brass and Itron.

Timber Country ran third and second at Santa Anita this winter before finishing fourth in the Santa Anita Derby. Lukas said longer distances would benefit the colt, concluding that the horse’s lumbering ways weren’t compatible with the Santa Anita surface. After the Derby, Lukas said that it was time Day rode the horse differently.

“I’ve always been this horse’s best cheerleader, but it had come time to fish or cut bait,” Lukas said. “Today, I told Pat to warm him up more, to get him more on his toes. Then I told him to get him placed and leave him alone. We wanted to make things happen, and give him daylight. This colt doesn’t have the quick turn of foot. He’s not a rabbit.”

Day felt that some of the criticism was justified, and after the Preakness didn’t disagree with the suggestion that he might have been taken off Timber Country if there had been one more loss.

“My contract was only until the end of this race,” said Day, who also rode Tank’s Prospect, Summer Squall and Tabasco Cat to victories in the Preakness.

Day reminded Timber Country that he was carrying a whip. He tapped him on the shoulder a couple of times in the post parade. He hit him again a few times leaving the gate. And he gave his mount yet two more gentle reminders on the far turn.

“I felt good going into the first turn and thought I had the winner then,” Day said. “We had a big, big shot in Kentucky. If I could have found daylight at the quarter pole there instead of at the eighth pole, the result in the Derby might have been the same as the one today.”

Itron, at 88-1, delayed the start when he sat down in the starting gate. When the field finally was released, Mystery Storm and Star Standard became the early speed through a leisurely half-mile of :47 1/5 and six furlongs in 1:10 4/5. Down the backstretch, Talkin Man was in third place, ahead of Oliver’s Twist, while Gary Stevens placed Thunder Gulch in fifth, with Timber Country running on their inside flank in sixth place.

The leaders were still game at the quarter pole, with Day looming on the outside of Thunder Gulch, five horses wide as the field straightened out for the stretch drive. Oliver’s Twist had trouble finding room on the inside and his jockey, Alberto Delgado, couldn’t move when he wanted to.

“I was dying to find a hole to go through,” Delgado said. “If the hole had opened up earlier, we would have won the race.”

Star Standard and Talkin Man were the leaders with an eighth of a mile left, only a head apart. Timber Country and Thunder Gulch were keeping close company on the outside.

“I had a great trip and I was in front of the winner until when it counted,” Stevens said. “Timber Country went by us so effortlessly that he took the starch out of my horse. I tried to hold off Oliver’s Twist for second, but I had nothing left. I was totally surprised that Timber Country went by us with as much ease as he did.”

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Horse Racing Notes

Besides Bob Smith, other trainers who won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness with different horses in the same year were William Duke, with Flying Ebony and Coventry in 1925, and Fred Hopkins, with Whiskery and Bostonian in 1927. . . . It was the sixth year in a row the Derby winner failed to win the Preakness. The last to do it was Sunday Silence in 1989. . . . Pat Day, who rode Tabasco Cat last year, became the first jockey to win back-to-back Preaknesses since Eddie Arcaro won with Hill Prince in 1950 and Bold in 1951.