Superstitious Owner Hopes Wand Has Magic

NEW YORK —  If all goes according to superstition, Jane du Pont Lunger could have the Horse of the Year by the end of the week.

Lunger, owner of the 3-year-old filly Go For Wand, will wear the same shoes with the same mud she wore nearly three months ago, and trainer Billy Badgett will be banished from the owner’s box again Saturday.

“She’s very superstitious,” Badgett said, and that’s part of the reason Go For Wand will run in the $1-million Breeders’ Distaff rather than take on the colts in the $3-million Breeders’ Cup Classic.

“She’s also from the old school--fillies versus fillies, and colts versus colts,” Badgett said.

“In the Classic, probably any horse can win,” Badgett said today. “It’s wide open. It’s not like there’s one standout. The Distaff, with my horses, Gorgeous and Bayakoa, could be a real horse race.”

Badgett says he believes that Go For Wand should have “a legitimate shot at Horse of the Year, just with the way the other horses have fallen by the wayside.”

Lunger, 76-year-old owner of Christiana Stable, has steadfastly refused to run Go For Wand against the colts. She is not one to change a winning formula.

Last Aug. 2, Go For Wand won the Test at Saratoga for her second straight Grade I win. In three subsequent races, Lunger has worn her same lucky shoes. “She didn’t even clean them off,” Badgett said. “They’ve got the same Saratoga mud on them.”

And Badgett hasn’t been allowed to sit in the owner’s box with her since Go For Wand won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Filly last year. Badgett had trouble getting through the crush of people to the owner’s box in time for the race, and Lunger took it as an omen.

“So, I haven’t watched a race with her yet,” Badgett said.