Trainer D. Wayne Lukas

Born: 09/02/1935, Antigo, Wisconsin

Resides: Louisville, Kentucky

Family: Jeff, son 

Lukas, perhaps the best known trainer at Oaklawn, has been training locally as a meeting regular the last four years.  Before, however, he often had stables here under key assistants. 

“I really like Hot Springs. I especially like the program here for three-year-olds.  My stable usually has good luck here,” he said. 

Lukas expects to have some 50 horses on hand for the 2010 Oaklawn season.  Last year, he finished fifth in the Spa trainer standings overall, winning 16 races from his 123 starters.  

His Silver Edition dead-heated with Red Hot’n Gold in the Hot Springs Stakes on March 21, 2009. 

The thoroughbred world first learned of Lukas by way of a filly. His first major horse on the national stage was Terlingua, dam of Storm Cat and one of the best juvenile fillies of 1978.” 

The popular trainer was switching to thoroughbreds after a hall-of-fame career with quarter horses. He recalled recently that his first big break with thoroughbreds came in 1980 when John Nerud turned the three-year-old colt Codex over to him to train for Tartan Farm. Codex won the Preakness. 

He leads the list for stakes winners in Oaklawn’s Racing Festival of the South with 13. He also leads in Breeders’ Cup races.   

Lukas has a particular affinity for the Honeybee, introduced at Oaklawn in 1988. D. Wayne saddled winners of the first four runnings of the Honeybee: Lost Kitty, Imaginary Lady, Train Robbery and Be Cool. 

Steve Asmussen would later saddle four winners in the stakes. In 2007, Lukas sent out Time’s Mistress for his fifth Honeybee winner. 

Lukas is a four-time Eclipse Award winner and first trainer to have his horses surpass the $100 million mark in purse money. 

Not only was Lukas the first trainer to have his stable reach $100 million in earnings, he was the first to attain $200 million. 

His Hall of Fame induction for thoroughbred racing came at Saratoga in 1999. 

The man has won the Kentucky Derby four times, Preakness, five, and Belmont Stakes four. Three of his thoroughbreds have won Horse of the Year, while 24 have been thoroughbred champions, 13 have captured Triple Crown races.  In 1987 he won a record 92 stakes.