The D. Wayne Lukas who passed away Saturday evening was not the same person who came over to the Thoroughbred world some 50 years ago. Yes, it was the same man who won all those Eclipse Awards, all those Triple Crown and Breeders’ Cup races, and changed the game profoundly -- from the sales ring to the track to the stable area -- and whose legacy has been carried on by assistants like Todd Pletcher and Dallas Stewart, and by the assistants of those assistants, like Michael McCarthy and Brad Cox. But the Lukas of the past 20 years was a different person. His final iteration was akin to a favorite uncle. He brought children of fans into the winner’s circle, went out of his way to accommodate admirers who wanted pictures, had great relationships with the media, was widely respected by everyone in the game for the tremendous scope of his accomplishments, and was often and simply referred to as “Coach.” That wasn’t the Lukas who first arrived on the Thoroughbred scene nearly 50 years ago, having conquered the Quarter Horse world. Lukas was brash, bold, cantankerous, sought the spotlight, saw resentment of his success from many quarters, from fellow trainers to numerous media members, and was called far more pejoratives than cuddly ol’ “Coach.” It’s impossible to pinpoint when that transition happened. It wasn’t anything sudden. It certainly wasn’t after his son Jeff was trampled by Tabasco Cat in the fall of 1993, because Lukas’s hard-charging ways continued, including controversially running the outmatched Deeds Not Words in the 1997 Kentucky Derby merely to keep alive a consecutive streak of Derby appearances. And it wasn’t when he brought his old friend, basketball coach Bobby Knight, to his Churchill Downs stable before the Derby around that time. Before a large gathering of media members, Lukas theatrically waved his right arm toward his shed row. “Bobby,” he began. “These are the horses.” Then, waving his hand back toward the reporters, Lukas continued: “And these are the horses’ asses.” Lukas had been fighting those fights seemingly since he stepped into the stable areas at Santa Anita, Hollywood Park, and Del Mar, and then expanded exponentially, to the point where he had stables at every major track in the country, staffed by well-groomed, hard-working assistants, each stall filled with the best horses his clients could purchase, and they had plenty of purchasing power. The acceptance from the sport came grudgingly. There were notable exceptions, with one of the earliest being Hall of Fame trainer John Nerud, who was instrumental in Lukas working for the Tartan Farm of James Binger, for whom Lukas won his first Triple Crown race with Codex in the 1980 Preakness. But there was plenty of pushback, much of it born of jealousy. Lukas was a maverick. He won two stakes in five days with the same horse, Effervescing, at Hollywood Park in 1978. He frequently ran, and won, with fillies facing males, including with Horse of the Year Lady’s Secret, the hearty Serena’s Song, and, most notably, Derby winner Winning Colors. Trainers just didn’t do that, and certainly not to that degree. He had barns that were immaculate, with potted flowers, shed rows raked with precision, and bedding piled high in every stall. It was gorgeous, and, for some, resented as being showy. On race days, he dressed in the finest suits, wore expensive sunglasses. Lukas brought over white bridles from the Quarter Horse game. He used them there because racing at Los Alamitos was at night, and it helped his runners stand out, something he always sought. Those bridles are ubiquitous now, on runners trained by Cox, McCarthy, Pletcher, and Stewart, and many more from that training tree, like Mark Hennig, Mike Maker, George Weaver, and former trainer Kiaran McLaughlin, but at the time it was another way in which Lukas was perceived as being a show-off. When Lukas won the Derby for the first time in 1988, after 12 starters in seven previous runnings, he watched the race in the office of the track superintendent, yelling “My turn, my turn,” as Winning Colors held off Forty Niner. Two weeks later, the trainer of Forty Niner, Woody Stephens – who did not like Lukas one bit – seemed to have Forty Niner sent aggressively in a bid not to win the race, but to make sure Winning Colors did not. That was one example of how the old guard resented Lukas. And some of that pushback was self-inflicted. The Lukas of 25 or more years ago was hard on horses. He had outsized success, but numerous high-profile horses met early demises, like Grand Canyon and Landaluce. He ran Union City in the 1993 Preakness following a week of reportedly poor training by the colt. The quintessential moment of that time of his life was the 1999 Belmont, when Charismatic, fresh off victories in the Derby and Preakness, fractured his leg in the final furlong. Fortunately, he was saved. Lukas also had a fierce rivalry, beginning in the mid-1990s, with someone who followed, and on many levels emulated, Lukas. Bob Baffert came to the Thoroughbreds after success in Quarter Horses, also sought the horses Lukas referred to as “Saturday afternoon” horses, even tried to charm the same clients, most notably Bob and Beverly Lewis, for whom both ended up winning Triple Crown races. Lukas’s focus on the Triple Crown races as the obvious brass rings of the sport has changed the way racing looks at those races. There is a clear line of demarcation in interest in those races, most notably the Derby and its now consistently high field size, going back to when Lukas started making those races his obsession in the early 1980s. That’s not the only place where Lukas’s imprint will long be felt. His coaching tree already has produced outstanding disciples, and will live on for decades. His exacting standards for the way a barn looks, and the way people who work there act, has been carried on by those trainers, and many who have long admired Lukas, even if they didn’t work for him, like Kenny McPeek. Lukas’s imprint on the sales ring, in terms of what a horseman looks for, and the prices paid for those horses, has been substantial. Along the way, Lukas changed. He evolved with the times, in terms of how to train the modern-day racehorse, and the societal demands therein, and how to deal with people, too. He seemed satisfied, appreciative, and, most of all, content. There is no one else from his era who remained relevant at the top level through all this time, right up to winning the 2024 Preakness, and having runners this year in both the Derby and Preakness. That speaks to how he adjusted with the times, while retaining his unbridled enthusiasm and passion. It’s impossible to know what Lukas was thinking in his final hours, surrounded by family. He had seen the sport, which largely resented him when he first arrived, grow to admire and then make him a beloved figure. He had the satisfaction of seeing his former assistants become stars in their own right. His rivalry with Baffert morphed into a true friendship. His home was filled with trophies from big races and Eclipse Awards. Lukas saw his grandkids, Brady and Kelly, whose father, Jeff, was severely injured when they were children, grow up to be successful, upstanding individuals, and the parents of, collectively, four great-grandchildren to Lukas. And after saying in 2012 that his previous four wives “had no shot” owing to his obsession with racing, in recent years Lukas had the steady, easygoing company of his wife Laurie. The acceptance he desperately craved when he first came around, by the end it came to him in spades. So hopefully as he slipped away, he took comfort in knowing that, in every way, he had won. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.