Thin White Duke Wins for Two 'Woody U.' Trainers

The winning trainer of the $150,000 Lucky Coin Stakes at Saratoga Race Course Sept. 2 is a good friend of one of the owners, who used to be the trainer of the winning horse of the Lucky Coin.

Don't be confused. It's really an easy story to understand.

The winner of the Lucky Coin was New York-bred Thin White Duke , a 4-year-old gelding, who has had himself a solid summer at the Spa. He is trained by David Donk. The ownership group of Thin White Duke is headed by Phil Gleaves, who was a trainer for 37 years before retiring just about a year ago.

Gleaves bred and trained Thin White Duke, who was transferred to Donk once Gleaves retired.

Gleaves had Thin White Duke, a son of Dominus   in his barn for his first 10 starts. In the last eight trips to the races, Thin White Duke has been conditioned by Donk.

"It's obviously a novel concept," Gleaves said Sept. 3. "I am enjoying it because I have such a good rapport with Dave."

"Listen, everyone knows Phil is a great guy," Donk said. "He wanted to retire, and he is very happy that he did and is really enjoying it."

Thin White Duke, also owned by Steven Christ, Ken deRegt and Bryan Hilliard, won for the second time in nine career starts on turf when he took the Lucky Coin. He and jockey John Velazquez won the 5 1/2-furlong race on the Mellon turf by a nose.

When Gleaves retired, he sent Thin White Duke and another New York-bred, Succulent , a 3-year-old filly owned by the same group, to Donk (she runs the 10th race at Saratoga Sept. 4) as well as Yes and Yes , a 6-year-old Kentucky-bred gelding.

"He sent me the horses and told me everything that he could about them," Donk said. "Then, he is like, 'you're on your own! He lets you do what you want. He is quite hands off. Sometimes, it's hard to find him."

Before going out on his own as a trainer, Gleaves worked for eight years for Hall of Famer Woody Stephens. When he left, his slot as a Stephens assistant was filled by Donk. Gleaves calls it the school of "Woody U."

"I know the way Dave thinks and Dave knows how I think," Gleaves said. "When we are having conversations, we are already at the same place a lot of the time. If we question something between ourselves, the first thing out of our mouths is, 'What would Woody do?' That is the reason we don't have any disagreements of where to run or when to run."

The next decision will be whether to ship to Kentucky Downs for the $1 million FanDuel Turf Sprint (G2T) at six furlongs Sept. 10. Being a New York-bred, Thin White Duke would run for a purse of $550,000 as $450,000 of the purse is put up by the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund, a program that benefits Kentucky-bred runners.

Thin White Duke has run on short rest before. After finishing second in an allowance at Saratoga July 28, he returned Aug. 5 with a third in a three-horse photo in the Troy Stakes (G3T), not far behind victorious Golden Pal .