Lukas in poor health, steps away from training

D. Wayne Lukas, a former high school basketball coach who became one of the most influential figures in the sport of Thoroughbred racing, has been hospitalized and is in poor health and will no longer be training horses, his family said in a statement released Sunday through Churchill Downs.

Lukas, 89, was hospitalized due to a severe infection that has worsened his condition, the release said. Lukas has declined an aggressive treatment plan outlined by doctors and has decided to return home to spend his remaining time with his wife, Laurie, his grandchildren Brady and Kelly Roy, and great-grandchildren Johnny Roy, Thomas Roy, Walker Wayne Lukas, and Quinn Palmer Lukas.

Lukas, inducted into the Thoroughbred Hall of Fame in 1999, ran his last horse June 14 when Princess Aliyah finished fourth in the Monomoy Girl Stakes at Churchill. His last winner of 4,967 career Thoroughbred victories came two days earlier when Tour Player won an allowance race, also at Churchill. That horse was formerly trained by his fellow trainer and longtime friend Bob Baffert, whose wife, Jill, owned the horse.

Lukas’s stable, based at Churchill Downs, will be taken over by Sebastian “Bas” Nicholl, who has been with Lukas since 2002.

“Wayne built a legacy that will never be matched,” Nicholl said in the release. “Every decision I make, every horse I saddle, I’ll hear his voice in the back of my mind. This isn’t about filling his shoes – no one can – it’s about honoring everything that he’s built.”

Lukas transformed the profession of horse training since he first started training Thoroughbreds in 1978 following a 10-year stint as a Quarter Horse trainer, where he trained 24 champions.

During his tenure as a Thoroughbred trainer, Lukas won 15 classic races – four Kentucky Derbies, seven Preaknesses, and four Belmont Stakes – second all-time behind only Baffert (17). Lukas won his seventh Preakness last year with Seize the Grey and competed in this year’s Kentucky Derby and Preakness with American Promise, who finished 16th in the Derby and eighth in the Preakness.

Lukas is tied with Aidan O’Brien for most wins in the Breeders’ Cup series with 20.

Lukas’s horses have earned $300.5 million, sixth all-time. He won 1,105 stakes, 637 which were graded.

Lukas has won the Eclipse Award four times as outstanding trainer, was given the Eclipse Award of Merit in 2013, and has trained three horses – Lady’s Secret (1986), Criminal Type (1990), and Charismatic (1999) – to be named Horse of the Year. Overall, his horses have won a combined 26 Eclipse Awards.

Lukas was the first trainer to set up operations at multiple tracks – often keeping full barns in California, Kentucky, New York, and New Jersey – during the height of a racing season. “D. Wayne off the plane” became a familiar refrain when he would ship a horse from one jurisdiction to another to win a major race.

“He would have 40 at Belmont, 40 at Monmouth, 40 at Saratoga, 40 at Churchill, and 40 in California and support all the racing venues, not keying in on one place,” former assistant trainer Kiaran McLaughlin said. “I think that’s the difference between now and today.”

Perhaps Lukas’s greatest legacy is the number of former assistants who went on to become successful trainers. Todd Pletcher, who worked for Lukas from 1989-95, has become the sport’s all-time leading money earner with more than $505 million in purse money won. Other former Lukas assistants who went on to successful training careers include McLaughlin, Mike Maker, Mark Hennig, Dallas Stewart, Randy Bradshaw, George Weaver, and Bobby Barnett.

“He changed the Thoroughbred industry,” McLaughlin said. “He was a great coach and a great teacher to all of us assistants. We all worked very well together. It’s been a great fraternity. He was almost like a second father to all of us.”

Jeff Lukas, Wayne’s only son, worked as assistant to his father. In 1993, Jeff Lukas was injured when the rambunctious 2-year-old Tabasco Cat broke loose from his handlers and ran into him, fracturing Jeff’s skull and leaving him with permanent brain damage. Jeff died in 2016.

In 1994, Tabasco Cat won the Preakness and Belmont Stakes, during a stretch in which Lukas won six consecutive Triple Crown races.

Lukas graduated college with a master’s degree in education from the University of Wisconsin, where he later worked as an assistant basketball coach for two years. He taught high school and was a head basketball coach for nine years. In his latter years training horses he was known around the track as “Coach.”

In the Quarter Horse world, Lukas conditioned two-time world champion Dash for Cash (1976-77). He would win his first Thoroughbred race at Santa Anita on Oct. 20, 1977, and turned to Thoroughbreds full-time in 1978.

He has been winning – and coaching – ever since.

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