Legendary Thoroughbred Trainer D. Wayne Lukas Still Has It at 88

He still wakes up every morning at 3:30 a.m. to go to the barn. He still rides the pony every day to watch his horses train. And while his business may no longer be the coast-to-coast giant as he’s reached his late 80s, D. Wayne Lukas is still the Stetson-and-sunglasses-wearing embodiment of what is thoroughbred racing.

Train them hard.

Try them.

Maybe, just maybe, win a big one.

That never changed for Lukas, from the time he won his first Preakness with Codex in 1980 until he did it again on Saturday for the seventh time with Seize The Gray.

None of us are forever, but Lukas is taking a chance.

Just months shy of his 89th birthday, Lukas may have ruined the Triple Crown chances of Mystik Dan, who finished in a strong second place. But let’s be clear: he is not a spoiler in this sport.

“I think they’re trying to get rid of me,” Lukas joked on NBC when asked about the long line of coaches from Bob Baffert to Kenny McPeek rushing to congratulate him. “They probably want me to retire. I don’t think that will happen.

Thank goodness, because horse racing will be worse the moment Lukas is no longer involved. Can you imagine loving a job so much that you continue to work pre-dawn 15 or 20 years after most people are ready to retire? Can you imagine still being so good at it that you win your 15th Triple Crown race 44 years after your first?

“Wayne is an incredible guy,” McPeek, who coaches Mystik Dan, told NBC. “If I want to be beaten, it’s okay to be beaten by him. Over the years he beat me several times.

They all have. And in many ways, today’s great coaches value their careers because of the way Lukas changed the sport.

When he burst onto the scene in the late 1970s, after dominating quarter horse racing for a decade before, thoroughbred racing was much more of a local activity. You were either a New York coach or a Californian. You raced at the Kentucky circuit or stayed in Florida. For the most part, these were small family operations run by hardboots and lifers.

Lukas, whose background was actually coaching high school basketball, had a completely different approach.

He vigorously recruited big owners, convincing them to spend millions at yearling sales. His most prominent client, former San Diego Chargers owner Eugene Klein, purchased a $575,000 filly named Winning Colors in 1986 who would become Lukas’ first Derby winner.

But Lukas’ aura was about much more than having deep-pocketed owners. He professionalized every detail of his operation, from making sure the landscaping around his barn was immaculate to wearing expensive suits on race day. And he developed a business model that would spread his horses to every major racetrack in the country and make him a contender in almost every major race.

Whether it was the Triple Crown, the Breeders’ Cup, or a weekend of Tier 1 racing at premium tracks like Saratoga or Keeneland, Lukas was always going to be a factor – and he showed up often with several suitors. “D. Wayne off the plane,” was the nickname that followed him wherever he went.

It’s basically the same model that people like Baffert and Todd Pletcher, who worked under Lukas as an assistant in charge of his East Coast contingent, copied with enormous success.

There were of course ups and downs.

On several occasions, Lukas was criticized for the breakdown of some of his horses, including one, Union City, who suffered a tragic death during the 1993 Preakness as rumors swirled that the horse was unhealthy. His 1996 Derby winner, Grindstone, never raced again. And in 1999, Charismatic broke his leg in the final stretch of the Belmont while attempting to win the Triple Crown, although fortunately jockey Chris Antley’s quick actions that day helped save the life of the horse.

There was also a personal tragedy. In December 1993, his promising 2-year-old Tabasco Cat ran over Lukas’ son and assistant trainer, Jeff Lukas, fracturing his skull and sending him into a coma. Jeff Lukas eventually recovered and Tabasco Cat won both the Preakness and the Belmont, but Jeff Lukas endured a lifetime of struggle to overcome the brain damage he suffered before passing away at age 58.

Then came the dry spell in the early 2000s, after many of Lukas’ longtime clients retired from horse racing or died. Naturally, the new generation of wealthy owners looked to young stars like Pletcher and Baffert.

Even though Lukas’ business was forced to change, one thing never changed: he always gave his horses a chance to win big races, even in areas where it didn’t always make sense on the paper.

Earlier in her career, this involved taking risks, such as running a filly in the Kentucky Derby rather than the Kentucky Oaks. Sometimes, like with Winning Colors, it worked. Other times, like with Hall of Famer Serena’s Song, it was an embarrassing 16th place finish.

But racing horses in races where others thought Lukas didn’t have a chance has proven to pay off far more for him than for most of his peers. Charismatic, the aforementioned 1999 Derby and Preakness winner, rode in claiming races earlier in his career and was completely fired on Derby Day at odds of 31-1. In 2000, Lukas won the Belmont with a score of 19-1. Commendable, who had only won a first race before. His only Breeders’ Cup Classic victory came in 1999 with Cat Thief, a legitimate upset at 19-1.

Lukas always has this flair for winning a big race with a horse that you didn’t necessarily see coming. Sixteen The Gray looked nothing like a Triple Crown contender this spring when he finished third in the Jeff Ruby Steaks at Turfway Park and seventh in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland. But on Kentucky Derby Day, Lukas entered him in the Pat Day Mile, where he surprised slightly at 8-1.

Lukas decided to give him a chance two weeks later in a relatively weak Preakness, and it paid off when jockey Jaime Torres took him straight to the lead on a sloppy track, set a moderate pace and had plenty in the tank to put away Mystik Dan and delay third-place Catching Freedom’s late charge.

“It never gets old at this level,” Lukas said on NBC. “I love competition.”

In 2013, after Lukas’ Oxbow pulled off a Preakness upset and ended his 13-year Triple Crown win drought, he told the New York Times that he wanted to break the record “Sunny” Jim Fitzsimmons as the oldest coach to win one. at 82 years old.

“It’s something to aim for,” Lukas said. “That would mean I’m still in the game, and they haven’t plowed me somewhere under the racetrack.”

It took him 11 years to get there. And who knows, maybe he’s not done yet.