Lukas returns, has Crystal Lake in Unbridled Sidney

It’s a sight as reliable as the twin spires at Churchill Downs – Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas on his stable pony, escorting his first set to the track as it opens. But for more than two weeks, Lukas was absent from the stable area after testing positive for COVID-19 in mid-August. The trainer returned to the barn after recovering and testing negative, and was back in the saddle in time for this unusual Kentucky Derby week.

“I’ll say this – don’t underestimate it,” Lukas, who turns 85 on Wednesday, said of his experience with the coronavirus. “You don’t get your air, and it’s the strangest feeling. I couldn’t get air, and I’d feel like I was drifting away, and then I’d get back. You just wish you could get one breath of air.”

Not only is Lukas back, he has a stakes horse to saddle at Churchill Downs this week – and on his birthday, no less. He will look for Crystal Lake to step up in Wednesday’s featured $150,000 Unbridled Sidney for fillies and mares sprinting on the turf.

Lukas took over Crystal Lake’s training this season for owner-breeder Dr. Aaron Sones, who sent her in from Patrick Gallagher’s barn in California. The filly was third after showing the way early in a 1 1/16-mile allowance race on the Churchill Downs turf earlier this year, then went on to a solid summer at the Ellis Park meeting. Crystal Lake stalked the pace in second before winning an allowance race going a mile with Joe Talamo aboard, then finished eighth in the Kentucky Downs Preview Ladies Turf, also at a mile, under Martin Garcia.

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With Talamo back in the irons, she finished second by a nose in an allowance-optional claiming race going this 5 1/2-furlong distance on Aug. 22. Talamo retains the mount Wednesday on the filly, who will have to use her speed from her rail draw in the full field.

“She’d have to improve,” Lukas said. “She runs so honest and she puts in a great effort always, so I feel like she’s a fit. We’d like to step her up and get her into a stakes kind of program. She’s pretty honest, and she’s running out of conditions. She ran a hell of a race the last race.”

Crystal Lake faces a tall order in the Unbridled Sidney, for which the morning-line favorite is Grade 2 winner Break Even, a consistent winner of 7 of 10 lifetime for Brad Cox. The front-running filly won her only start on turf in the Coronation Cup at Saratoga last year. She is coming off a runner-up effort in the Grade 3 Winning Colors in May on the Churchill Downs dirt.

Jo Jo Air won the Daisycutter Handicap in July at Del Mar for Wesley Ward, while Jakarta and Ambassador Luna are coming off stakes placings at Saratoga and Ellis, respectively. Dixieincandyland is coming off an allowance-optional claiming win at Ellis over Hidden Facts, who then defeated Crystal Lake in her next outing. Meanwhile, Bulletproof One is coming off a front-running allowance-optional win at Del Mar, and could give Break Even and Crystal Lake company on the front end.

Still, Lukas appreciates just being in the game.

"I appreciate every day getting on that horse, getting out there, training horses, doing what I've done all my life,” he said. “I don't need a virus or a session like I had to appreciate every day. I enjoy it."