Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Even at 86, Lukas a figure in the spotlight, not the twilight
BALTIMORE – At the northwest corner of the stakes barn here at Pimlico Race Course, trainer D. Wayne Lukas settled into a plastic chair on Wednesday, his morning training done. The spot afforded him a view down the shedrow of, among others, his filly Secret Oath, who runs in the Preakness on Saturday. But it also afforded him a view of all he’s done here over the years.
This is the track where, 42 years ago, Lukas announced himself to a national audience. His colt Codex beat the popular filly Genuine Risk, who two weeks earlier had won the Kentucky Derby, thus casting Lukas into a spotlight that’s shined on him for decades. He has run 45 horses in the Preakness, a race in which he’s participated 30 times, and he’s come away with six victories, the most recent with Oxbow in 2013.
Lukas still cuts the same figure he did all those years ago. On Wednesday, he was outfitted in blue jeans, with a cotton vest over a crisp, button-down shirt. Cowboy boots, a white cowboy hat, and designer sunglasses completed the look. He’s 86 now, was almost half that, 44, then, but the style never has changed.
He has, though. Lukas has outlived his contemporaries, and the once-controversial figure – for his aggressive management of horses, his absolute delight at thumbing his nose at conventional wisdom and the old guard – has morphed into everyone’s favorite uncle.
What does it mean to have been here so often over the years?
“It means I’m the oldest one, by a longshot,” he said. “I’m here. A lot of guys I ran with aren’t anymore.”
LeRoy Jolley, who trained Genuine Risk, died 4 1/2 years ago. T.J. Kelly, who trained Colonel Moran, the third-place finisher in that Preakness, has been gone nine years. It was Kelly, Lukas recalled, who was surprised on Preakness day that Lukas hadn’t pulled both alfalfa and water from Codex before the race.
“He said, ‘If you win this today, I’m gonna go work for you,’ ” Lukas said.
Codex had won the Santa Anita Derby on March 30, but was not nominated to the Derby during an era when nominations to all three Triple Crown races needed to be done separately, not collectively as today. So, after winning the Santa Anita Derby, Codex ran two weeks later in the Hollywood Derby – then run on dirt, in the spring, at Hollywood Park – and then moved on to the Preakness.
“He was in the first stall, right here,” Lukas said. “The barn was pink then. All the Derby horses were on this side, including Genuine Risk. I thought, ‘These horses looked a little tucked up.’ I thought, ‘I think we’ll be awful tough here.’ ”
Codex won the race under an aggressive ride from Angel Cordero Jr., who floated out Genuine Risk, though the stewards initially after the race, and the Maryland Racing Commission when hearing an appeal, both ruled there was no contact, and thus no need for a disqualification.
“Half of America thought we were the bad guys. All the women,” Lukas said.
Lukas won the Preakness for the second time in 1985 with Tank’s Prospect, who had finished seventh in the Kentucky Derby after winning the Arkansas Derby.
Lukas reached perhaps a career nadir in 1993, when Union City suffered fatal injuries in the Preakness. Seven months later, Lukas’s son and top assistant, Jeff, was trampled by the then 2-year-old colt Tabasco Cat in the stable area at Santa Anita. The 1994 Preakness thus provided redemption for both Lukas and Tabasco Cat, who won the race, and three weeks later the Belmont.
“We made a commitment with Tabasco Cat that we were going to try and make something positive out of something seriously negative,” Lukas said. “I called everybody at the barn in and said we can’t blame the horse. I didn’t want any negativity, just try to make the horse the best we could.
“It was a Hollywood script the way it played out, except for not winning the Derby,” in which Tabasco Cat finished sixth, Lukas said.
One year later, Lukas won his fourth Preakness, with Timber Country, who defeated stablemate Thunder Gulch, who won that year’s Derby and Belmont. Those wins, coming on the heels of Tabasco Cat’s victories in 1994, preceded a Derby victory in 1996 by Grindstone, giving Lukas victories in six straight Triple Crown races.
Lukas’s next Preakness victory, his fifth, came in 1999 with Charismatic, who had scored an upset victory in the Derby and then finished third in the Belmont in which he suffered a career-ending injury, the lasting image of that race jockey Chris Antley sympathetically cradling the colt’s injured
limb until medical aid arrived.
It took 14 years for Lukas to win another Preakness, that in 2013 with Oxbow. That sixth Preakness put him one shy of the all-time record, then held solely by R.W. Walden, who won the race seven times from 1875 through 1888. The record has since been equaled by Bob Baffert. Lukas would make it a threesome if Secret Oath prevails.
Lukas said winning with Oxbow, in concert with jockey Gary Stevens – 25 years after they teamed to each win their first Derby with Winning Colors – was special.
“Gary and I hooked up one more time,” Lukas said. “One of the more memorable things about that is that Baffert had a horse in the race, was about two rows behind us, and at the halfmile pole I heard him say, ‘Go get ’em, Lukie.’ ”
Baffert’s entrant, Govenor Charlie, was never a factor in the race, finishing eighth of nine.
“So we start cheering, they start cheering, and after the race they’re all excited and high-fiving,” Lukas said. “This game is so competitive. You don’t get guys cheering for you all the time.”
So here he is, 42 years after beating a popular filly, finding the horseshoe on the other foot, trying to beat the boys with a filly.
“Absolutely, it would be sweet. That’s why we’re here,” Lukas said. “Filly, colt, government mule. I don’t care. I’m here to win the thing.”
And he’s not about to stop. He still follows basketball and football closely, but the closest he’s come to a vacation is his television remote.
“I don’t need a vacation. I’ve got Discovery Channel,” he said.
No, all Lukas wants are some young horses, and good enough health to keep going for as long as he can.
“I’m not gonna stop. I don’t know what I’d do,” he said. “I’m bored if I’m not in competition.”
In fact, he’s already looking forward to next year’s classics, perhaps with Secret Oath 2.0.
“I’ve got a couple of fillies I really like,” he said of his 2-year-olds. “They can really run.”