Mugatu Delivers First Career Win for Trainer Danny Eubanks at Laurel Park

March has been a remarkable month for the Eubanks family at Laurel Park, and Sunday gave them one more reason to celebrate. Danny Eubanks, who has spent the past year and a half managing his mother Annette's barn, scored his first official training victory on his first starter at the track when Mugatu surged from last to first under jockey Carlos Lopez in the day's opening $20,000 starter allowance for 4-year-olds and up at 1 1/16 miles. The 5-year-old chestnut gelding, sired by Maryland stallion Blofeld, paid $9.40.

"I think I stopped breathing at the quarter pole until he crossed the line," Eubanks said in the winner's circle.

The victory arrived at a particularly charged moment for the family. Eight days earlier, Annette Eubanks had earned her 500th career training win. On the Friday before Danny's Sunday triumph, the family gathered at Laurel Park to celebrate patriarch Guy Eubanks' 90th birthday. Danny acknowledged the weight of the week in the same breath he used to downplay his own milestone. "This isn't as big as the emotions when my mom won her 500th because that took a lot more effort," he said. "This feels pretty easy, but this was a work in progress all along. Right now, to have my mom's 500th, dad's 90th on Friday, and this first start for me, it's awesome."

The work in progress had its origins last summer, when trainer Greg Sacco reached out to Eubanks about claiming a horse for the 2025 Maryland Million Classic. Eubanks targeted Mugatu, a horse with legitimate stakes credentials: he had competed in the 2024 GI Preakness Stakes for trainer Jeff Engler and had finished third in the 2024 Maryland Million Classic, part of a year in which he cracked the top three in two stakes races.

Rising Sun Racing Stables, Eubanks' operation, claimed Mugatu for $30,000. The plan didn't unfold neatly. Eubanks quickly concluded he had overpaid relative to the horse's fit for the Classic and pivoted to a more deliberate strategy. "I felt like I paid a little too much for him, especially when entries came out for the Classic," he said. "He didn't belong, but that's why I claimed him, and I stuck with the game plan. I knew I had this three-life condition that he's eligible for to protect him for $20,000. It took me a little longer than I expected. This is what I've been expecting for three or four races."

That patience was rewarded Sunday with Lopez guiding Mugatu from the back of the field through a 1 1/16-mile starter allowance and into the winner's circle. Although Eubanks has now gone out on his own, Annette is not stepping away from training, meaning the family barn will carry two sets of ambitions into the Maryland spring meet.