X – #4 – Lure – horseracing20thcentury99.com

Top Ten Turf Males Twentieth Century

#4

Lure

(1991 - 1994)

Lure’s first seven career races were on dirt with his greatest win the 1992 G2 Gotham Stakes in a dead-heat with Devil His Due. His final 18 races were on turf, and he won 11 of them with six seconds, his only time missing the top two when he finished 9^th in the 1994 Breeders’ Cup Mile, his final career race.

Photo: Uncredited

PEDIGREE

Bay H

OWNER

Claiborne (2 others)

TRAINER

Shug McGaughey

BREEDER

Claiborne/Gamely Group

Some Facts

Lure was born on May 14, 1989, at Claiborne Farm in Kentucky, bred by the partnership of Claiborne Farm and William Haggin Perry. Upon Mr. Perry’s death, Lure was owned by Claiborne Farm and Mr. Perry’s widow, Nicole Perry Gorman. He was trained throughout his career by Claude “Shug” McGaughey.
Lure was by leading Sire Danzig, who was by Northern Dancer and out of the Admiral Voyage’s mare Pas de Nom, which won stakes in both Canada and the United States. Danzig won all three of his career starts before retiring because of recurring knee problems.
Danzig was the leading sire in North America in 1991, 1992, and 1993 and is classified as Chef-de-Race in two categories, Intermediate and Brilliant. He sired 188 stake winners and ten champions. A relatively small horse, standing 15.3 hands at maturity, he was both gritty and determined and passed these characteristics on to his sons and daughters. His greatest offspring was Danehill, an American-bred group one stake winner in Britain who never won past seven furlongs. Danehill was the first to sire three hundred stake winners, finishing his career at stud with 349, of which eighty-nine were grade/group one winners. Danehill was the leading sire in Australia nine times, Great Britain and Ireland three times, and France twice.
Lure was foaled by stakes-winning Endear, a daughter of the great Alydar and out of the Relic mare Chappaquiddick, who also produced the major turf winner Tiller, who regularly defeated some of America’s best turf horses, including John Henry, Exceller, and Noble Dancer. Endear’s greatest victory was in the grade one Hempstead Handicap in 1986 when she defeated Horse of the Year Lady’s Secret.
Despite being bred to run on turf, Lure’s first seven starts were on dirt. In his first stake race, he finished sixth by fourteen lengths in the G1 Champagne on Oct 12, 1991, as the 3-2 favorite. Finishing third in that race was Pine Bluff, another son of Danzig, who the following year defeated the Kentucky Derby winner Lil E Tee in the G2 Arkansas Deby, then won the Preakness Stakes.
In 1992, Lure regained his Derby status by winning the G2 Gotham Stakes by four lengths in a dead-heat with Devil His Due but was taken out of Derby contention when he finished second in the G2 Lexington Stakes.
After finishing sixth in the G3 Riva Ridge Stakes on Jun 6, Lure’s final eighteen career starts were on turf, and he missed the top three only once, his final race, the 1994 Breeders’ Cup Turf Mile. His record on turf is 18 -11 – 6 – 0 – (1), with earnings of $2,348,839.
Lure ran in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Mile three times and won the first two in 1992 and 1993.
In the 1992 Breeders’ Cup Turf Mile, Lure set a track record at Gulfstream Park with a time of 1:32 4/5.
Lure’s Beyers ranged from 100 to 115 in eighteen career races on turf. In the two races where he failed to get a triple-digit Beyer, the first was in the 1994 Turf Classic at Churchill Downs. He was credited with a 98 after finishing second to Paradise Creek. The other double-digit Beyer was 88, which was credited to him in the 1994 Breeders’ Cup Turf Mile. In this race, he was bothered by a quarter crack and failed to fire, finishing ninth. With the quarter crack worsening, the Turf Mile was his final career race as he was retired to stud.
In the 1994 Turf Classic at Churchill Downs, Lure set a nine-furlong track record of 1:46.36 that stud until Dalika broke it (1:46.31) in 2022. Lure’s time is still a record for the Turf Classic.
In the 1994 Bernard Baruch Stakes at Saratoga, Lure won the nine-furlong race in 1:46, an extremely fast time for this course back then. Despite a slow first half in :48 1/5, in which he was second, he then ran the second half-mile in :46 2/5^th seconds and blitzed the final eighth of a mile in :11 2/5^th.
Lure’s first stake win on turf was in the 1992 Breeders’ Cup Mile. He ran in California and Florida once each, those races being the Breeders’ Cup Mile. He never ran in Illinois.
Mike Smith rode Lure in every one of his eighteen races on turf.
Lure retired to stud at Claiborne Farm following his five-year-old campaign. He proved to have fertility problems and was later sold to Coolmore Stud, who stood him in Ireland and then at Ashmore Stud in America. He eventually sired seventy-two winners from 133 foals with just seven stake winners. His most successful offspring were Orpen, which won the group one Prix Morny in France, and England’s Legend, which won the G1 Beverly D. Stakes in 2001 at Arlington Park.
When his stud career was over, Lure was pensioned and returned to Claiborne Farm, where he lived until his death on Nov 17, 2017. He was twenty-eight years old.
Despite his brilliance on the turf, Lure never won a title as he lost to Sky Classic in 1992 and Kotashaan in 1993. He was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2013.