Just Steel preparing for the Preakness (Anika Miskar/Past The Wire)
Robert Yates/Oaklawn Park
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. — Just Steel’s 2024-2025 Oaklawn resume doesn’t include a race, but D. Wayne Lukas, the colt’s Hall of Fame trainer, said that will change.
Unraced since finishing fifth in last May’s Preakness, Just Steel is nearing his 4-year-old debut, Lukas said, after recording seven published workouts at Oaklawn since late December. The latest was a six-furlong gate drill in 1:14 over a fast track Monday morning.
Lukas said a major spring target for Just Steel is the $500,000 Oaklawn Mile (G3) March 29. The Oaklawn Mile is one of several potential local landing spots for Just Steel, a son of 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify. Just Steel, at 2, broke his maiden at six furlongs and was a stakes winner at 6 ½ furlongs ($225,000 Ed Brown at Churchill Downs).
“He’s pretty versatile,” Lukas said. “He could go long or short, so I’ve got some options. In a perfect world, if everything would fall into place, I’d like to run him in the Oaklawn Mile. That would be a great spot.”
Oaklawn’s two-turn stakes series for older horses includes the $500,000 Razorback Handicap (G3) at 1 1/16 miles Feb. 22, $500,000 Essex Handicap (G3) at 1 1/8 miles March 22 and the $1.25 million Oaklawn Handicap (G2) at 1 1/8 miles April 19.
“The stakes schedule makes it so you can’t run in all of them, which I would do,” Lukas, jokingly, said. “I would say I’d probably try to find a conditioned race and then go in the Oaklawn Mile. That would be my guess. I’m going to run him. I really think he’s doing good.”
Just Steel was the only horse to go through Oaklawn’s four-race series of Kentucky Derby qualifying races at the 2023-2024 meeting, finishing second in the $300,000 Smarty Jones Stakes, second in the $800,000 Southwest Stakes (G3), seventh in the $1.25 million Rebel Stakes (G2) and second in the $1.5 million Arkansas Derby (G1). The Smarty Jones, Southwest and Rebel were 1 1/16 miles, the Arkansas Derby 1 1/8 miles.
After running 17th in the Kentucky Derby, Just Steel exited the Preakness – the second leg of the Triple Crown – with a fracture in his right front leg that required surgery. Just Steel resumed training last fall and returned to the work tab Dec. 21 at Oaklawn.
“Super,” Lukas said, when asked how Just Steel had progressed. “Any adjective you want to use, superlative you want to use, would fit. He’s coming back, he’s had that time off, he’s filled out, he’s matured. If you’ve looked at his work tab, it’s pretty solid.”
Just Steel was purchased for $500,000 at the 2022 Keeneland September Yearling Sale by BC Stables (John Bellinger and Brian Coelho). Overall, Just Steel has a 2-4-1 record from 13 lifetime starts and earnings of $784,545.
