Preakness 2021: Six-time winner Lukas taking a shot with Ram

BALTIMORE – D. Wayne Lukas has been coming to Pimlico for the Preakness for more than 40 years, so he’s not concerned with what people think about him running a horse that’s sure to be the longest shot in the field Saturday.

“I don’t have to stand here and try to prove I can train a horse,” said the 85-year-old Hall of Famer. “If somebody’s saying, ‘What the hell’s he doing in there with that horse?’ We’re the longshot, we’re dangerous.”

Ram, a winner of his last two starts after being defeated in his first seven, will be making his stakes debut when becoming the 45th Preakness starter for Lukas, a record for trainers. The chestnut ridgling is co-owned by Bill Mack and Christine Baker, whose husband, Bob, recently died after being a Lukas client for more than 20 years. Mack and the Bakers were the owners of Proud Citizen, second in the Kentucky Derby and third in the Preakness in 2002 for Lukas. One reason for entering Ram, said Lukas, is that Christine Baker “is kind of emotional about coming here and being part of all this again.”

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Ram will have Ricardo Santana Jr. aboard when breaking from post 1.

“He’s got to move forward,” Lukas said. “It’s kind of like Oxbow, getting good at the right time.”

Oxbow in 2013 was the last Lukas horse to win the Preakness. The trainer’s first Preakness winner came in his first try, with Codex in 1980 in a cause celebre that helped launched Lukas into superstardom. His other winners during that remarkable 33-year span were Tank’s Prospect (1985), Tabasco Cat (1994), Timber Country (1995), and Charismatic (1999). The Preakness record of seven wins is held jointly by R. Wyndham Walden and Bob Baffert.

With Baffert absent from the backstretch scene this week because of the raging controversy surrounding the possible Derby disqualification of Medina Spirit due to a positive drug test, Lukas has stepped in as a staunch defender of his longtime friend and colleague during his frequent media interviews. Lukas, who served for three years on the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission (2013-16), believes Baffert is being treated unfairly in a number of ways.

“I tried talking him into coming, called him two or three times,” he said. “I told him, ‘Bob, c’mon, you didn’t do anything, you’re perfectly innocent.’ He’s just so disgusted with the whole thing.”

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Lukas said he believes uniform regulations to be set forth by the federal Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act that goes into effect in July 2022 need to include testing thresholds “at realistic levels,” adding the finding of 21 picograms of betamethasone in Medina Spirit “had no effect on the race or his performance – none.”

Lukas said he normally revels in pre-race festivities leading into the Preakness, but this year obviously is different because of the Medina Spirit situation.

“The enthusiasm, the feel, the excitement, it’s not here,” he said. “The whole atmosphere has changed.”