BOZICH | Kentucky Derby loses a giant: D. Wayne Lukas, racing icon, dies at 89

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — It was the weekend before Kentucky Derby 151. I hustled to my go-to spot for Derby wisdom the last four decades:

Barn 44 on the Churchill Downs backside.

That was the sparkling, manicured home of D. Wayne Lukas, the trainer who changed horse racing in America more than anybody changed it.

On Saturday, racing lost Lukas just 2 1/2 months shy of his 90th birthday. His passing leaves a gap that stretches from Belmont Park to Santa Anita from Gulfstream Park to any track or sales ring in Kentucky.

I can’t remember experiencing Derby Week without D. Wayne Lukas. I’ve never seen Barn 44 without the trademark Lukas upscale landscaping — flowers everywhere, motivational signs, historic plaques, sparkling paint and the shed row properly raked every 15 minutes.

A half dozen of us visited Lukas a week before Derby 151, even though his horse, American Promise, was not a serious contender.

Didn't matter. You want to talk Derby? You talk to Wayne. He expected it. He welcomed it. He excelled at it. Nobody knew the Derby or understood the importance of hyping the Derby more than Lukas. Matt Winn, John Asher, Ben Jones and D. Wayne Lukas are going to have a ball talking about the Triple Crown.

Earlier that morning several trainers declined to talk. Or they closed the doors to their offices.

Not Wayne.

He was resting in his office. I stuck my head inside. Lukas had just returned after taking his final set of horses to the track. Lukas and I had some battles through the years. But he would always make time. 

Would he have time that morning? He’d already finished several rounds of interviews?

“Of course,” Lukas said.

Long before “Ask me anythings,” became the rage on social media Lukas was available for media folks to ask him anything every day of Derby Week.

Should fillies race in the Kentucky Derby? 

Ask Wayne. 

He won his first Derby in 1988 with Winning Colors, a filly that another trainer, Woody Stephens, said did not belong in the race and would never beat Forty Niner, the favored colt that Stephens trained. I wrote that one, a story that had an inflammatory headline. Wayne was not pleased. He reminded me about that every spring. He also reminded me that his filly won, the last filly to win the Derby.

“I was very confident with Winning Colors,” he said. “I thought she was the best of her gender but also the best of her 3-year-old crop.”

How much of a factor is luck in the Derby? How often does the best horse fail to win?

Ask Wayne.

“I don’t know if luck is the word to use,” Lukas said. “I just think it’s fate and what happens to you and the decisions that a rider has to make on the fly.”

Should the Triple Crown series be reworked, giving the top young horses more than two weeks to prepare for the Preakness and another three for the Belmont?

Ask Wayne.

He would tell you that of course it should be changed. The Triple Crown schedule became a rousing talking point this spring when trainer Bill Mott skipped the Preakness to point Derby winner Sovereignty for the Belmont Stakes.

People around racing know that Lukas started advocating for that adjustment 30 years ago, during that stretch when Lukas won the Derby three times from 1995-through-1999. If you planned to win the Derby in the Nineties, you had to go through Wayne. Lukas looked at the Triple Crown like a sports fan looked at, not like a member of The Jockey Club.

“That should have happened a long time ago,” Lukas said.

This year I had more questions for Wayne. Several of us did. We always had questions for Wayne because Wayne always made time to give us sensible answers.

Derby Week is a high stress week. Some trainers go out of their feed tubs. They see the media pack approach and they throw up wooden barriers and police tape.

Not Wayne.

Wayne got it. There was more to the job than training horses to run fast, recruiting owners, selecting jockeys and posing for pictures in the winner’s circle.

Selling the sport mattered, too. Wayne sold horse racing as relentlessly as the sport could be sold. 

He sold it to owners like Bob and Beverly Lewis, W.T. Young, Eugene Klein, Michael Tabor and business titans from across the globe, convincing them to invest millions in young horses and take the thrill ride of their lives. Bob Knight, Bill Parcells, Paul Hornung, Pete Newell, Jim McKay or Bo Derek. You could find all of them at Lukas’ barn. In the late Eighties and Nineties, it was The Place to Be.

He had the best horses, the best wardrobe and the best soundbites. He'd show up on Derby Day in $5,000 suits, designer sunglasses and sparkling shoes. If ABC or NBC needed an interview before a race, Lukas was available.

Lukas built the deepest and most talented stable in America, setting up divisions in Kentucky, New York, California and any spot an important race was on the calendar. At one point, he had a stable of 154 horses. Todd Pletcher, Kieran McLaughlin, Dallas Stewart and Mike Maker are all graduates of the Lukas School of Training. They'll ensure the Lukas Legacy remains strong.

“D. Wayne off the plane,” became code words that Lukas and one of his top horses were jetting in to win a big race.

With his background as a basketball coach, Lukas would routinely come into the Kentucky Derby with entries of three or more horses, as if he was coaching the regional champions of the South, Midwest and West Regionals.

Lukas produced. 

He never stopped producing. After a dynamic decade of mostly training world champion quarter horses at the start of his career, Lukas chased the Kentucky Derby dream, switching to thoroughbreds full time in 1978.

The record will show that Lukas won his 4,953rd and final race with Tour Player in a $134,000 allowance claiming race on June 12 at the track Lukas loved more than any other — Churchill Downs. After making his name in California, Lukas made Kentucky his home long ago.

His career numbers are Babe Ruth, Tom Brady or Michael Jordan numbers. They look like something Hollywood exaggerated. They are not.

Starts — 30,436.

Wins — 4,953.

Seconds — 4,254.

Thirds — 3,809.

Kentucky Derbies — 4 (1988, 1995, 1996, 1999).

Preakness — 7 (1980, 1985, 1994, 1995, 1999, 2013, 2024).

Belmonts — 4 (1994, 1995 1996, 2000).

Breeders Cup — 20 wins.

Total earnings — More than $300,534,000.

Fans created for horse racing — Incalculable.

When Eric Crawford shared the news with me that Lukas was stepping away from training, I listened one more time to the 15 minutes that he gave us outside Barn 44 in late April. During Derby Week, Lukas joked that riding a horse was easy. Walking is what became difficult. But he persisted. Lukas always persisted.

Here he was at 89 years old, getting himself to the track long before sunrise, climbing on a horse and getting his stable ready for the spring meet at Churchill Downs.

I asked him if he thought he was an inspiration to others.

“I don’t,” he said. 

“But I hear it from other people, people you would never think of. Like Bill Parcells (coach of two Super Bowl champions). People who have had unbelievable achievements. 

“Bill would always say, ‘Did you ride today?’ And then he would get right into it. But that comes up a lot more lately.”

Do you enjoy hearing it?

“Yeah. It’s refreshing but it’s not my major concern every morning.”

Have your ever considered cutting back?

“That sofa pulls at you pretty hard every morning when your alarm is going off at 3:30,” he said. 

“It’s not the first seven days. It’s the next 107 or 207 that, you know, it works on you. But once I get up and rolling, I’m fine.”

D. Wayne Lukas always rolled several furlongs faster and stronger than fine. He was simply the best, an iconic trainer who did more to lift horse racing than anybody in the game.

More on D. Wayne Lukas:

D. Wayne Lukas, Hall of Fame trainer who transformed thoroughbred racing, dies at 89

Scott Davenport praises storied career of friend D. Wayne Lukas as trainer retires

Coffee with Crawford | D. Wayne Lukas never let the old man in — now he’s turning for home

Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas retires from racing amid serious health issues

Seize the Grey wins the Preakness for D. Wayne Lukas and ends Mystik Dan’s Triple Crown bid

At 88 and still in the saddle, Lukas to receive Derby Museum's first Lifetime Achievement Award

BOZICH | COVID-19 could not stop D. Wayne Lukas from savoring Kentucky Derby week

CRAWFORD | Lukas is back in the saddle for another Derby week after beating back COVID-19

BOZICH | Virus delay drives D. Wayne Lukas's Kentucky Derby dream

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