Kentucky Derby to have a decided Lukas influence

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – D. Wayne Lukas made an impression on a teenage Bob Baffert decades ago when Lukas shipped several horses into a Sonoita, Ariz., track about 30 miles from Baffert’s home. Lukas was an established Quarter Horse trainer and was invading for trials for a futurity.

“It was big time,” recalled Baffert. “He rolled in with all these good 2-year-olds, a first-class operation. He was the guy. Wayne’s always been bigger than life. He’s always been the bar of racing.”

Lukas, like Baffert, is a Hall of Fame trainer. His accomplishments include winning a record 14 Triple Crown races and training a record 26 champions. The influence Lukas has had on the game could be underscored next month, with as many as four of his former assistants positioned to have starters in the Kentucky Derby.

Lukas himself could join former assistants Mike Maker, Kiaran McLaughlin, Todd Pletcher, and George Weaver in the Kentucky Derby with the multiple Grade 1-placed Mr. Z, depending on what happens Saturday at Oaklawn Park in the Arkansas Derby. Either way, Lukas said he derives great satisfaction from the success of his former assistants.

“I think it’s almost a fatherly pride,” he said on a recent morning. “They were dedicated, great guys that really helped my career. Now I might have helped them, and if I did, so be it. I hope I did. But at the same time, they were so talented and so dedicated and had such a passion for the sport that they carried me with them.”

Lukas forged his own path in racing when still in high school, racing at bush tracks for spending money while growing up on a farm in Wisconsin. He’s now just a few months removed from turning 80 and next month could find himself in a position to try for a fifth win in the Kentucky Derby. Lukas had his first starter in the race in 1981 and his 47th and most recent runner in 2013. He’s participated in 34 runnings of the classic at Churchill Downs.

“You know what’s wrong with that?” Lukas asked in jest. “We only won four!”

Lukas has a stable keyed on developing young horses, and as such has been a regular participant in the Kentucky Derby.

“It’s not an objective for the barn, except that it’s an objective for my clientele,” he said. “That is the key. When you take a horse in, no matter how poorly he’s bred, whether he has any ability, people who send the horse have got that in the back of their minds.

“They want to be in the Derby. It’s tremendous. It’s seductive. It’s completely overwhelming. So, if you’re in my position, or Bob’s position, or Todd’s position, or anybody else out there, you have to step back and say if any one of these has got the ability to make it, we need to put them there. You need to do it for your clientele.”

Lukas has a master’s degree in education and was a high-school teacher and basketball coach who later got on as an assistant at the University of Wisconsin. But he decided to pursue racing full time in the late 1960s.

“I was training in the summer and had to stop on the horses because of the fall teaching and coaching,” Lukas said. “I started to evaluate that I was doing as well in three months as I did in the other nine as a teacher and a coach. I loved the coaching. I wake up every once in a while wondering what would have happened if I had stayed in coaching. I love coaching. I love the teaching. I love the interaction with the kids. It carried over to this, too.”

Pletcher said the lessons he’s learned from Lukas are numerous, on both a professional and personal level.

“One thing Wayne seems to be so good at is he’s able to turn the page every day, come in and start all over again,” Pletcher said. “I think there’s a lot to be said for that. Sometimes in this particular business, the highs are high and the lows are low, and there’s constant changing day to day. It’s hard to stay steady and focused on what you’re doing. Wayne handles adversity as well as anyone I’ve ever met.”

Lukas said he gets up at 3:30 each morning and has no plans to retire. He said the passion he has for racing drives him, and he’s at a stage where he feels he has a certain responsibility to give back to the game. One of his ideas, the annual It’s My Derby event, is a key fundraiser for the Kentucky Derby Museum.

“I won’t retire,” Lukas said. “I think retiring is for people who need to refresh, to revitalize themselves, to maybe get a new outlook on life. I get that every day training horses.”

And through the hope of coming up with the next Mr. Z.