Preakness 2024: Lukas provides the jokes at Alibi Breakfast
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BALTIMORE – If this training thing doesn’t work out for D. Wayne Lukas, perhaps he’ll have a future in stand-up comedy.
Lukas provided most of the comic relief at the annual Alibi Breakfast, held the Thursday of Preakness week where trainers used to give possible excuses for if their horses didn’t run well in the second jewel of the Triple Crown, but now just tell stories.
Lukas, 88, is a six-time winner of the Preakness and sends out two horses in Saturday’s 149th renewal –Just Steel and Seize the Grey.
Lukas said he congratulated Maryland Jockey Club vice president Georgeanne Hale on putting together a solid Preakness field and then asked her for a list of the other races, known as an overnight.
“I said Georgeanne, we’ve drawn the race, now what about an overnight?” Lukas said. “She said, if you weren’t so damn old, I’d consider it.”
Lukas poked fun at trainer Kenny McPeek, trainer of Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan.
“I went to his office the other day and he was so proud, he had just finished a jigsaw puzzle,” Lukas said. “He said ‘Wayne look at this, I finished this puzzle in two months and it says right on the box 2 to 4 years.”
Before he left the podium, Lukas noted that the cane that he was using was a sign of old age.
“There are three signs of old age,” Lukas said. “The first one is loss of memory. I can’t think of the other two.”
Reids have Maryland ties
Twenty years after the Pennsylvania-bred Smarty Jones won the Preakness as the favorite, the Pennsylvania-bred Uncle Heavy will start Saturday as longshot in the race.
Uncle Heavy is trained by Butch Reid and is named for his brother Mark, a former trainer who now works as a bloodstock agent buying horses.
Both Reids are graduates of the University of Maryland, and both started working with horses for legendary Maryland trainer Dick Dutrow in the 1970s.
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Butch Reid, who is based at Parx Racing in Bensalem, Pa., said he brought five Pennsylvania-breds to Maryland for races this weekend, including Jeanne Marie who starts in Friday’s Grade 2, $300,000 Black-Eyed Susan Stakes for 3-year-old fillies.
DRF’s Illman earns Old Hilltop Award
Dan Illman, a longtime racing analyst for Daily Racing Form, was honored by the Maryland Jockey Club with the Old Hilltop Award, which acknowledges media members who have covered Thoroughbred racing with excellence and distinction.
Illman, the lead anchor for DRF’s handicapping videos since 2003 and Mid-Atlantic correspondent since 2020, said he knew at an early age he wanted to get involved in handicapping.
Illman said in middle school when a teacher asked what 43 and 2 was, he responded “good for the closers.”
Illman joined a roster of Old Hilltop winners that includes Red Smith, Joe Hirsch, Bill Leggett, Jim McKay, Dave Johnson, Barbara Livingston, and Jay Privman.
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Also honored at the breakfast was WBAL-Radio, which received the David F. Woods Memorial Award, presented by Pimlico to the writer or broadcaster for the best Preakness story from the previous year.
John Voorhees, was honored with the Jerry Frutkoff Preakness Photography Award for best photo from the previous Preakness. His photo was of John Velazquez pushing National Treasure to a narrow victory over Blazing Sevens.
Longtime Maryland breeders/owner Ellen Charles was given a Special Award of Merit.
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