Lee Levinson purchased his first racehorses more than 30 years ago and soon had a seminal realization: After you get past the initial investment, a cheap horse eats as much as a good horse and costs the same to train without the earning potential.

“I didn’t have the money, and I bought some stuff that really wasn’t high quality. I realized then how the game worked,” Levinson said recently, adding of his long-time friend Don Nelson, “I told Don, ‘I’ll be back. I’ll buy good stuff and I’ll do it right.’ About a year and half ago, I put up the money and said, ‘We’re going to buy some good stuff.’”

One of the five yearlings bought last year by Levinson was Lookin At Lee, who on Monday was among the 11 two-year-old colts and geldings entered in Saturday’s $2 million Sentient Jet Juvenile at Santa Anita. The winner likely will be voted 2-year-old champion and become the favorite for the 2017 Kentucky Derby.

When Lookin At Lee captured the $75,000 Ellis Park Juvenile in August, it was the first stakes victory for the owners, life-long racing fans from Oklahoma. When the son of 2010 3-year-old champion Lookin At Lucky was second to the ultra-impressive Not This Time in Churchill Downs’ Grade 3 Iroquois, it was their first time in a graded stakes. When he was a much closer second to Classic Empire in Keeneland’s Claiborne Breeders’ Futurity, it was their first time in a Grade 1 stakes.

Not This Time and Classic Empire also are in the 1 1/16-mile Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

“I got to the stage in life that I didn’t mind spending some money to try to do what I always wanted to do,” said Levinson, an attorney who also is in the oil, tobacco and hotel business in Tulsa. “And I had the ability to do it. I wanted to do it the right way.

“It’s a dream come true, to be totally honest. I realize how hard it is to get there, to get a quality horse like we have. Even if you buy good horses, your chances of getting one this good are not great. So I realize what we have. It might be a once in a lifetime opportunity, who knows?”

The friends race as L and N Racing, with the partnership also including Levinson’s sons Mike and Andy. Through fellow Oklahoma attorney and horse owner Clark Brewster, they hooked up with trainer Steve Asmussen, the 2016 Hall of Fame inductee who helped pick out the yearling at Keeneland’s 2015 September sale.

They paid $70,000 for Lookin At Lee and sent him to get his earliest training at Asmussen’s parents famed El Primero Training Center in Laredo, Texas.

“Steve liked him very much. He said he was a steal,” said Nelson, a prosecutor from Mannford, Okla., who with his wife, Carol, have owned horses dating to when the state approved parimutuel horse racing in the early 1980s. “He thought he’d go for $150,000, $175,000. And Keith, his dad, he doesn’t say much. All he told me was, ‘Don, this colt here can run a little.’”

Lookin At Lee, named by Mike Levinson for his dad, so far has earned $199,695. He won his second start by 4 3/4 lengths at Ellis Park, where Asmussen had a string for the first time in years and was the leading trainer. Two weeks later he captured the EP Juvenile by three-quarters of a length over the talented filly Caroline Test.

In the Breeders’ Futurity, Lookin At Lee was more than 15 lengths back after a slow start, running late but unable to threaten Classic Empire. He has trained in blinkers since and will race in them for the first time Saturday. 

“He got pretty far back, Steve thought, in the race at Keeneland,” said assistant trainer Scott Blasi, who is overseeing the training of Lookin At Lee and Dirt Mile contender Gun Runner at Santa Anita. “We’re looking to have him maybe a little sharper and hopefully there is some pace to run into.

“He did incur some traffic at Keeneland, maybe compromised his finish a little bit. But it was a good race, and he deserves to be here. He’s very big and physical. I think the more races he has, the better he’ll get.” 

Churchill Downs-based Ricardo Santana Jr. has the mount.

“If that race was a mile and an eighth, I don’t think anybody would beat us,” Levinson said. “We get stronger as the race goes on, so I’m pretty excited about it…. Not many people give us a chance, but I think we’ve got a good chance.”

Jennie Rees is a racing communications specialist from Louisville. Her Breeders’ Cup coverage, which concentrates on the Kentucky horses, is provided free to media as a service by Kentucky Downs, Ellis Park, the Kentucky HBPA and JockeyTalk360.com.