Thirty years after Winning Colors, Lukas still in with a shot

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – He rode back on his pony after overseeing the training of his horses, just as he’s done for decades, the only concession to age being that he used a stepstool to help him dismount when he reached his barn at Churchill Downs.

His wit is still sharp, and while the bite it once had has softened with age, trainer D. Wayne Lukas still wants things done his way. The straw in the stalls just so, the shed row raked and cleaned as though a state dinner will be served. It’s all black and white. The only gray area is Winning Colors.

There are reminders of Winning Colors all around Churchill Downs – including her name being one of the 143 Kentucky Derby winners listed on placards that ring the area near the paddock – but the best reminder is Lukas, still going strong at age 82.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Winning Colors’s Derby win, the first for Lukas, and here is Lukas still reaching for Derby glory. He’s won the race four times – only one trainer, Ben Jones, has won more – and while his chances this year are remote, as Bravazo will be one of the longest shots in the race on Saturday, Lukas still has the backing of well-heeled clients and the good health to work as hard as he desires.

“I look forward to this every year, whether I’m in it or not, since I have so many protégés,” said Lukas, who did not have a Derby starter in 2016 or 2017 but saw former assistant Todd Pletcher win it last year with Always Dreaming. “I expect to be in it every year.”

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In 1988, Lukas was about a decade into his full-time commitment to Thoroughbreds after moving over from Quarter Horses, and the Derby had eluded him with 12 prior starters. At the time, he held the inglorious mark of the worst record among trainers in Derby history. That all began to change on the afternoon of May 7, 1988.

With the sun shining bright on the old Kentucky home of the Derby, Winning Colors, under 25-year-old jockey Gary Stevens, led from start to finish, holding off Forty Niner as they passed beneath the shadows of the twin spires to become only the third filly to win the Derby.

“My turn,” Lukas said as Winning Colors crossed the finish.

Lukas watched the race in a small alcove – “like a janitor’s office,” Lukas recalled this week – just off the tunnel that leads from the paddock to the racetrack, on a small television.

“I don’t know how you’ll watch the race on that,” a reporter shadowing Lukas commented.

“She’s gray. And she’ll be in front the whole way,” Lukas replied.

Winning Colors came into the Derby off victories against fillies in the Santa Anita Oaks and then against males in the Santa Anita Derby. She was an imposing presence. “She was bigger than any colt in the race,” Lukas said.

She almost didn’t make the race. While being grazed by Lukas’s son and top assistant, Jeff, the day before the Derby, a motorcycle backfired on a road adjacent to the stable area. Winning Colors tried to take off.

“She dragged Jeff 50 feet on the grass,” Lukas said of his son, who died in 2016. “He had grass stains all over the front of his pants. I asked him what happened. He said, ‘I didn’t let go.’ ”

Winning Colors had strength, but her biggest asset was her speed, and Stevens utilized it, most notably by getting separation from his rivals with three furlongs to go.

“I felt that if anyone had any horse, I was going to try and get away from them,” Stevens said after the race. “Wayne said that if I was leading at the three-eighths and I had a lot of horse, to let her go.”

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As the field crossed the wire, Winning Colors’s exercise rider ran onto the track, having watched the race on the ground floor next to his wife and mother.

“Seeing her win, it was just euphoric,” said Dallas Stewart, who graduated from exercise rider and is one of several former Lukas employees who have become successful trainers and won major races. “We believed in her so much.”

Lukas said he had a feeling of satisfaction when finally winning his first Derby. Though he now has the demeanor of a kindly old uncle, in 1988 Lukas was very much a controversial figure in the sport, his brashness and aggressiveness rubbing many the wrong way.

“Get that win, and you’ve arrived,” Lukas said this past weekend. “It stamps you. It’s a career-making deal in a lot of ways.

“I don’t think you’re ever prepared for how you’ll feel after winning the first one. It does make an impact. In my case, it just fuels the fire. You’re never satisfied after that. You want another and another.”

Lukas added Derby victories in 1995 (Thunder Gulch), 1996 (Grindstone), and 1999 (Charismatic). He’s been in the Derby nine times since then, and if he doesn’t win this year, he expects to be back again next year, trying for No. 5 from his current crop of 2-year-olds.

“I wake up every day expecting it,” he said. “I’ve got a number of half-million-dollar yearlings. We’re not without talent. My health is good. And I’ve got some pretty good stock.”