Hall of Fame horse trainer D. Wayne Lukas, a winner of 15 Triple Crown races, dies at 89

Boston Globe

a day ago

Mr. Lukas won 15 Triple Crown races, including the Kentucky Derby four times. Only good friend Bob Baffert has more Triple Crown victories, and Mr. Lukas owns a record-tying 20 in the Breeders' Cup World Championships.
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'The whole secret of this game, I think, is being able to read the horse: Read what he needs, what he doesn't need, what he can't do, what he can do,' Mr. Lukas said in May before his 34th and final Preakness Stakes. 'That's the whole key. Everybody's got the blacksmith, everybody's got to the same bed available, the feed man. We all can hire a good jockey. We all can hire a pretty good exercise rider if we've got the means, so what the hell is the difference? The horse is the difference and what we do with him in reading him.'
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Mr. Lukas watched morning workouts before sunrise at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., in 2009.
Ed Reinke/Associated Press
Mr. Lukas was affectionately known around the barns and the racetrack as 'Coach' because he coached high school basketball before his professional career with horses began. Even with months to go before his 90th birthday, he would get up on his pony in the early morning hours and go out to the track himself, rather than letting his assistants do the day-to-day work.
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Born Darnell Wayne Lukas on Sept. 2, 1935, in Wisconsin as the second of three children, he rose to prominence in the sport with quarter horses in races that are effectively sprints. He moved into thoroughbreds in the late 1970s and won his first Preakness with Codex in 1980.
Mr. Lukas has 4,967 documented victories in thoroughbred racing, with his horses earning more than $310 million from more than 30,600 starts.
'Today we lost one of the great champions of Churchill Downs and one of the most significant figures in thoroughbred racing over the last 50 years,' Churchill Downs Inc. CEO Bill Carstanjen said. 'We will miss his humor, his wisdom, and his unmatched capacity to thrill the fans with the performances of his horses on our sport's biggest days.'
Achieving something of a career renaissance over the past decade, one he credits to finding the right owners willing to spend money on horses, Mr. Lukas won the Preakness last year with Seize the Grey. Asked what motivates him to keep doing his job well into his late 80s, he gave a pep talk fit for a locker room before a big game.
'If you have a passion, you eliminate all the excuses,' he said. 'That's how it works. You get up early. You go without a meal. You drive. You go without sleep — as long as you got the passion. Don't let that sofa pull you down. It's a little easy when that alarm goes off to say, 'Oh my God, I don't know if I really want to do this today.' Erase that. The most important decision you'll ever make in your life is your attitude decision. Make it early, and make the right one.'
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