BALTIMORE – D. Wayne Lukas still remembers coming through the Pimlico stable gate the morning after Codex defeated the Kentucky Derby-winning filly Genuine Risk in the 1980 Preakness and being handed a bag of mail from the security guard. “I’m feeling pretty good, just won my first classic. He says, ‘Wow, you got a bag of mail, lot of telegrams came in overnight’ and he gives me the mailbag,” Lukas recalled Monday morning at Pimlico. “I sit down in the tack room, [former Daily Racing Form executive columnist] Joe Hirsch sits down there and I start to open them. “They’re all hate mail,” Lukas added. “Very few congratulatory letters. ‘You mugged the filly, you took advantage of her.’ I thought, ‘Damn, we won this thing and we get this response?’ He was tons the best, he would have beat her no matter what.” Codex, under Angel Cordero, had drifted out at the top of the stretch and carried out Genuine Risk in that Preakness but went on to win by 4 3/4 lengths. He had to withstand a jockey’s objection from Jacinto Vasquez. It was the first of what is now six Preakness victories and 14 wins in Triple Crown races for Lukas, the now 88-year-old Hall of Fame trainer. After missing last year, Lukas on Saturday will make his record-extending 32nd appearance in the Preakness with Just Steel and Seize the Grey, who will be his 47th and 48th Preakness starters, also a record. :: Get ready for the Preakness with DRF past performances, picks, and betting strategies! “We like this place, this is a favorite place,” Lukas said on a quiet Monday morning as he awaited the arrival later in the day of seven horses he plans to start here Friday and Saturday. “I guess it’s a favorite if you win here, and we have won frequently here, not only in the Preakness but the undercard. Between the Pimlico Special and the Black-Eyed Susan, when it was more prominent, it’s been enjoyable. The hospitality is second to none.” Codex was Lukas’s only Preakness winner who didn’t run in the Kentucky Derby, the trainer having forgot to nominate him. Back then, horses were nominated to the three races individually, not as a trio. Lukas has won the Preakness with a Kentucky Derby winner, Charismatic in 1999, and with four other horses who lost the Derby. Lukas’s last Preakness winner came in 2013 with Oxbow, who finished sixth, beaten 9 3/4 lengths, in the Kentucky Derby. In Just Steel, Lukas on Saturday will send out a horse that finished 17th and was beaten 33 3/4 lengths in the Kentucky Derby. Under Keith Asmussen, Just Steel got involved in a three-way speed duel, racing in between Track Phantom and Fierceness, and was done early. “There was no way he could keep that up,” Lukas said. “He grabbed the bit, according to Keith, got real aggressive. Got to give him another chance; that’s not his style.” In his race before the Kentucky Derby, Just Steel finished second to Muth while finishing 4 1/4 lengths in front Mystik Dan, who would come back to win the Kentucky Derby. Muth, trained by Bob Baffert, is likely going to be favored in the Preakness. “We need to get the performance we got against Baffert’s horse and we’ll be all right,” said Lukas, who will have Joel Rosario aboard Just Steel on Saturday. Just Steel has already made 12 starts, tying him with Mugatu for most in the field. Just Steel, a son of Justify, began his career at Ellis Park last June before winning his first race at Saratoga in his third career start. His only other victory came in the Ed Brown Stakes at Churchill last November. “He’s a big, sound horse, he’s got a lot of substance to him, and he needs to be raced in order to get to where I want to get him,” Lukas said. “He’s not delicate by any means.” Seize the Grey, a son of Arrogate, did not earn enough qualifying points to make it into the Kentucky Derby field. Rather than enter him and wind up on the also-eligible list, Lukas ran him in the Pat Day Mile, a one-turn-mile race he won by 1 1/2 lengths. “I don’t have any reservations whatsoever about stretching him out,” Lukas said. “In fact, I think it might be better. He was so impressive in the Pat Day Mile, it might set him up really well.” At 88, Lukas still thrives being around the horses. Last December, at Oaklawn Park, he got bucked off a pony and suffered seven cracked ribs. He walks with a cane – “as insurance so I don’t do a header again,” Lukas said – but he still gets on the pony in the mornings. “I still enjoy riding and I feel real comfortable up there,” Lukas said. “Getting on and off I’m careful but what I do now is instead of getting off every set and walking the shed row I just ride the shed row and point ‘Get this, do that.’ ” Regardless of what happens Saturday, Lukas is confident he’ll back in the Triple Crown races next year based on the early reports on his burgeoning 2-year-old crop. “I really like them,” Lukas said. “I’ll be surprised if we’re not here next year. If I’m here, I think the horses will be here.” :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.