Padua, Lukas simplify business

Padua Stables and trainer D. Wayne Lukas are altering their business relationship, an official of Padua said Tuesday, but Lukas will remain the operation's exclusive trainer.

Nadia Sanan, the daughter of Padua owner Satish Sanan and assistant general manager of the operation, said that Lukas will move his business office headquarters from Padua's Florida farm property to Lexington, Ky. Lukas moved his accounting and financial staff to the Padua property three years ago from his Westerly Training Center in California. His training operation at the Florida farm will remain, Sanan said.

"Nothing really is changing," Sanan said. "He's still the exclusive trainer for all our horses. We're just going to take over the accounting at the farm."

Lukas's staff had been handling the billing both for Padua's farm and their own operation. Sanan said that as Padua has expanded, the arrangement had become overly confusing.

"It wasn't confusing when we had only six horses," she said. "But now we have broodmares and stallions, and more mares for boarding, and we plan to bring on maybe three more stallions. It got to be too much."