Remembering D. Wayne Lukas, a relentless horseman who changed horse racing

• D. Wayne Lukas was one of the most prolific trainers in horse racing, including four Kentucky Derby wins, five Kentucky Oaks victories and 15 Triple Crown races.
• Lukas won his last Triple Crown race winning the 2024 Preakness Stakes with Seize the Grey.
• Lukas' impact on the sport extends beyond the horses in the stalls to a training tree of successful horse trainers including Todd Pletcher, Dallas Stewart, Brad Cox and more.

On a day just before the 151st Kentucky Derby, D. Wayne Lukas sat tall atop his stable pony, surveying the Churchill Downs backstretch like a general at morning roll call. Two-year-old thoroughbreds flashed past him, hooves thundering down the rail. He turned to the railbirds and half-jokingly told them, "One day, I'll just roll off this pony onto the track and let the tractor harrow me under."

Where else would the most accomplished trainer in thoroughbred history want to rest but under the very dirt trod by the champions he forged?

For more than five decades, Lukas was racing's measuring stick. From the twin spires of Churchill to the sun-soaked apron of Santa Anita, he built a coast-to-coast empire defined by preparation, toughness and an expectation of excellence. He didn't just train horses — he trained an entire industry to think differently.

On June 28, just miles from that dirt track, Lukas died at age 89, according to Churchill Downs, surrounded by his family after a battle with MRSA and chronic illness. A statement from Churchill Downs called his career "unmatchable." His longtime assistant, Sebastian "Bas" Nicholl, will continue running operations for Lukas Enterprises Inc. out of Barn 44 on Churchill's backside, where Lukas stabled since 1989.

A hole now sits in the heart of American horse racing.

Missed the retirement memo

During the last decade, he may no longer have ruled racing with a string of horses from Saratoga to Santa Anita, but he continued to rise each morning at 3:30 to be at his barn by 4:30.

He must have missed the retirement memo. He wasn't going anywhere on anyone else's terms. His trademark was toughness. He always had more 2-year-olds to train.

But earlier this spring, Churchill Downs backside workers began to notice subtle signs. Nothing drastic at first. He was still out in his yellow raincoat, sitting on his pony through a recent downpour. But then one morning, his truck wasn't parked outside the barn. Then another.

It wasn't long before he was hospitalized with a severe blood infection, which led to complications with his heart and digestive system.

Doctors offered an aggressive path forward: multiple surgeries, long recoveries. Lukas said 'no.'

Instead, he chose to spend his remaining days at home with his wife, Laurie, his grandchildren Brady Wayne Lukas and Kelly Roy, and his great-grandchildren. Hospice care was recommended.

While Churchill Downs formally announced his retirement from racing on June 22, in many ways, he never really retired because he never stopped showing up — until he couldn't anymore.

Just nine days before that announcement, he climbed on a step stool to sit on his stable pony and took what would end up being his last ride beneath the legendary twin spires.

A mindset forged by miles

Darrell Wayne Lukas came from a time when horses were partners, not pets — more for transportation, less for entertainment. Born on Sept. 2, 1935, he was the middle of Ted and Bea Lukas' three children. Raised on a 10-acre farm outside Antigo, Wisconsin, he and younger brother, Lowell, learned early that life revolved around livestock, sweat and respect for routine.

His father supplemented the income from his cows by driving a milk truck, and his mother taught a life of steadfast organization.

By age 8, Lukas started training horses. By 11, he was leasing a bean field from his uncle, hiring kids to pick it and selling the harvest to a local cannery for a profit.

He and his brother shared a mare named Queenie that they raced at the Antigo County Fairgrounds.

"I've always said my career was based on one horse, and that was Queenie," Lukas told Bloodhorse, an industry publication, in 1999. "She gave me the opportunity to go places."

In the 1940s, when there were more racetracks, the trainers from the Illinois circuit would winter their racehorses at the Antigo County Fairgrounds.

"It was five or six miles from the house, and I would ride down there every afternoon and pick those trainers’ brains,” Lukas told the magazine. “I don’t know if I was getting good advice or bad advice, but at least I got to be around horses. They were worth only $400 or $500, but to me, they looked like Secretariat."

After earning a master's in education from the University of Wisconsin, Lukas became a high school basketball coach. He wore suits he couldn't afford and taught his teams that preparation wasn't optional — it was everything.

By the late 1960s, he gave it all up to pursue horses full-time. His family wasn't thrilled.

"My father’s conception was that Wayne had run away with the circus," Lowell Lukas told the magazine in 1999.

In truth, Lukas was building something that would change the sport forever.

Revolution by organization

He dominated the Quarter Horse Circuit first, ranking among the Top 10 trainers for 11 seasons. Then, in 1978, he switched to thoroughbreds.

He structured his barn like a corporation: uniform tack rooms, consistent training schedules, global reach. He built a national racing operation with four barns, 400 horses, nearly as many employees, a private jet, a helicopter and a nine-figure enterprise. He was the first to send horses on commercial flights, the first to brand saddle towels with his own initials, and one of the first to treat the job like a CEO, not just a cowboy.

He even had his own greenhouse where he grew all of his flowers and shipped them to his stables.

He won his first Kentucky Derby in 1988 with Winning Colors, a filly who beat the boys. In the years that followed, he stacked up 14 Breeders' Cup wins and 15 Triple Crown race victories, a mark second only to Bob Baffert.

By 1988, his horses earned $17.8 million in a single year — more than double the previous record.

Even the barns mirror a franchise, like McDonald's, from the green-and-white color scheme to the white bridles and white wooden fences.

Heartbreak along the way

But the rise came at a cost. Lukas was famously tough on himself, on his team and on his horses. Like all trainers, he withstood owners who left and took their horses with them, even during health challenges. He even survived the bankruptcy of Calumet Farm in the early 1990s, a big former client that he said was a $3 million hit that "rocked me on my heels."

He had a talent for always finding the athletic potential of sale yearlings. He also faced criticisms that although he won a lot of races, he broke down a lot of horses — at least in high-profile moments, like Union City in the 1993 Preakness or Charimastic during his bid for a Triple Crown on the final stretch of the 1999 Belmont Stakes.

He asked a lot because he gave everything. "You can't hold a marriage license and trainer's license at the same time," he often said. He lost four marriages along the way.

In December 1993, tragedy struck his family. His only son and top assistant, Jeff, was struck by a horse in the barn and suffered permanent brain damage. Lukas nearly quit. But instead, while Jeff was still on a ventilator, he sent the very horse that injured him — Tabasco Cat — out to win the Preakness and Belmont.

Jeff never trained again, but remained part of the team until his death in 2016.

Lukas kept going.

'The chance of a lifetime'

He kept coaching, too. His barns produced a generation of future greats: Todd Pletcher, Dallas Stewart, Kiaran McLaughlin and Brad Cox all trained under Lukas' high-pressure model.

His Barn 44 is wallpapered with mottos, like the Cowboy Code: "Live each day with courage." "The chance of a lifetime in a lifetime of chance." His Trainer's Daily Dozen included "the virtue of patience" and "the worth of character."

He wore cowboy hats, pressed jeans and sport coats tailored just for him. Even in the heat of summer.

"Be the best-dressed person in the room," he was known for saying.

He expected the same from everyone else in the paddock.

A plaque on Lukas' barn lists seven numbers:

25 - 20 - 4 - 7 - 4 - 14 - 3

Those numbers signify: World Champions (Eclipse awards). Breeder's Cup wins. Kentucky Derby winners. Preakness wins. Belmont wins. World Champion training titles. Horse of the Year titles.

Each number holds stories that would probably take a lifetime to retell. If laid end-to-end on the racetrack, Lukas' achievements would likely stretch a mile-and-a-quarter, the distance of the race he attended on the first Saturday in May across four decades. But Lukas' true legacy is how he did it. He liked to say, "If you have a passion for something, you eliminate all the excuses for not doing it."

He said that after winning the 2024 Preakness Stakes with Seize The Grey — his final Triple Crown win, with a colt owned by MyRacehorse syndicate of over 2,700 small-share owners.

Lukas' last lap

They still call him "Coach" on the backside.

His green-and-white director's chair with the word scripted on the back sits just outside his office door. The Lukas Gap, a break in the rail near the six-furlong pole, remains a subtle tribute. So do the saddle towels, pommel pads, paddock bags and CEO-like professionalism — all now staples in the sport because of him.

He was a giant in the industry, not just because of what he won, but, trainers say, because of how many others he lifted with him.

"Wayne Lukas reinvented the game," Lanny Kohnhorst, the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association's Director of Horsemen's Relations. "Wayne produced champions, from Grade 1 winners to stallion prospects to next generation of trainers, and defined American Thoroughbred racing."

His charisma never faded. His custom suits never wrinkled. And after every win, he picked a child from the crowd to walk with him to the winner's circle. It was his quiet vow that the next generation mattered.

At his final press conference, Lukas closed with one more piece of advice.

"Don’t let that sofa pull you down ...," he said. "The most important decision you'll ever make in your life is your attitude decision. Make it early and make the right one."

He would have turned 90 in September.

Lukas trained horses for nearly 30,000 mornings. Because he deeply believed that he'd been given the chance of a lifetime — in a lifetime of chance.

(This story has been updated to correct an inaccuracy.)

Stephanie Kuzydym is an enterprise and investigative sports reporter. Reach her at [email protected] or at  @stephkuzy.