Dortmund, Leading Derby Contender, Is Horse Discoverer's Latest Star

Dortmund, Leading Derby
 Contender, Is Horse
 Discoverer’s Latest Star

 With the help of mentors like the trainers Bruce Headley,
 Baffert and Richard Matlow, who died in 2009, Donato Lanni,
 above, has honed his skills picking winners.
 LUKE SHARRETT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

By KATIE LAMB
APRIL 2, 2015

 On the first Saturday in May 1996, Donato Lanni, amid final exams to
 complete a business degree at Concordia University in Montreal, watched
 the unheralded California thoroughbred trainer Bob Baffert come within a
 nose of winning the Kentucky Derby with a gelding named Cavonnier.

Weeks later, Lanni packed up his Volkswagen Golf and headed for
Lexington, Ky., to fulfill a lifelong goal of working in the racehorse industry.

“I literally didn’t know one person,” Lanni said of arriving in the world’s horse
capital.

Today, Lanni is one of the most sought-after thoroughbred scouts in North
America, and one of his most loyal clients is Baffert, who subsequently won
three Derbys and was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

On Saturday, Bob Baffert will saddle Dortmund, another Lanni find, in the $1
million Santa Anita Derby at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Calif.
BENOIT PHOTO, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

Together, the pair have found the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner,
Bayern; the 2010 Preakness winner, Lookin at Lucky; and the two-time
Breeders’ Cup champion Secret Circle, who last week won the $2 million
Dubai Golden Shaheen.

On Saturday, Baffert will saddle Dortmund, another Lanni find, in the $1
  million Santa Anita Derby at Santa Anita Park. The undefeated colt is not
  only the 3-5 morning-line favorite, but he is also a leading contender to win
  the Kentucky Derbyon May 2.

  Lanni also selected One Lucky Dane, a second Baffert runner in the Santa
  Anita Derby, at the September yearling sale at Keeneland. That colt is the
  second choice after Dortmund, at 5-1.

  Lanni grew up in Beaconsfield, Quebec, a sleepy suburb on Montreal’s west
  island, and his father owned Standardbreds. As a teenager, he spent his
  summers working as a groom at Blue Bonnets Raceway, which closed in
  2009.

Graphic | The Kentucky Derby Dartboard Joe Drape and Melissa Hoppert
weigh in on some of the contenders for the 141st Kentucky Derby, which is set to
be run May 2.

  At Blue Bonnets, Lanni worked under André Lachance, a trainer who comes
  from a long line of successful French Canadian horsemen.

  “He was kind of the Clint Eastwood of Standardbred trainers,” Lanni said.
  “He didn’t say anything, he didn’t like anybody, didn’t talk to anybody, but for
  some reason he liked me, and I got along with him, and he taught me things
  like horses’ feet and conformation and soundness.”

  But Blue Bonnets was not the bluegrass, and upon arriving in Kentucky,
  Lanni found that human pedigree holds as much sway as the equines’.

  For weeks, Lanni showed up at farms looking for someone to give him a
  shot, but he did not have any luck. Running out of money, he bought a tent

and camped out in the Kentucky Horse Park for “at least a week,” as he put
it, until he found work preparing yearlings for auction at a Standardbred
farm.

From there, he landed a job selling stallion breedings for the famed Walmac
Farm. At Walmac, he met the prominent horse owner George Krikorian, who
took a liking to him and told him that if Lanni ever saw a horse that caught
his eye, Krikorian would buy it.

At a yearling sale in Kentucky, Lanni saw a bay filly by Dynaformer who he
believed had all the makings of a stellar racehorse. He bought her for
Krikorian for the modest price of $35,000. Krikorian named her Starrer, and
she went on to be a multiple graded stakes winner, earning more than $1
million in purses.

“From that point on, I learned how to look at horses,” Lanni said. “To
understand what has a good chance of staying together and staying sound,
mentally and physically.”

With the help of mentors like the trainers Bruce Headley, Baffert and Richard
Matlow, Lanni has honed his skill of picking winners. At thoroughbred
auctions, Lanni says he makes a point of looking at every horse and asking
himself: “Is it made right? Is it athletic? Does it move right?”

He does not take notes, just gives each horse a quick glance. If a horse he
likes is still on his mind at the end of the day, Lanni adds it to a shortlist.

“I learned how to not gauge horses by their pedigree, just by their physical,
by an athletic individual that’s made right and has class,” he said. “With all
these great horses that I have been involved with, they all had a presence
about them: They were just a cool, smart animal.”

Lanni met Baffert through John Sikura, owner of Hill ’n’ Dale Farms in
Lexington, where Lanni works as director of bloodstock services.

Baffert said: “We’re a good team. He knows what I like, and he knows what I
don’t like. Like brothers, I consider him like a brother.”

At 17 hands, their latest star, Dortmund, is a beast of a horse. He was a
bargain, too, costing $140,000 at a Maryland 2-year-old-in-training sale. He

is a son of the Derby and Preakness winner Big Brown, who has yet to make
a name for himself as a sire.

On Saturday, Baffert and Lanni will find out if Dortmund can get one step
closer to living up to his sire’s legacy.

“Every year, I drive through the Horse Park just to remind myself how lucky I
am to have got here and be surrounded by great people and great horses,”
Lanni said.