Louisville Magazine

APR 2014

Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.

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5 4 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 4.14 Does the Derby still mean as much to you as it did, say, 30 years ago? "I think it's gotten more important. You win one and it's so important to your career and you personally feel like, well, I may never have another chance. Ten you win a couple more and you develop a passion for it and Derby fever really runs deep. What happens is you keep coming back and coming back and hoping to pull of another one, and when you get to be my age, you wonder how many more chances you're going to have. As evasive as it is, it's not going to be easy." What are your sharpest memories from that frst Derby victory with Winning Colors in '88? "Te frst classic I ever ran in was the Preakness (in 1980 with Codex) and we won it. I thought, 'Well, this is not that big of a deal.' Ten the frst Derby I ran a fairly marginal horse (Partez, third in 1981), and he ran well and I'm thinking, 'Tis is going to be OK; we'll win some of these.' I didn't realize it was going to take eight more years to get my frst one. It was exhilarating in every sense of the word. You felt like you had arrived. If you're a horse trainer, you wanted that on your résumé. I felt like at least I got that behind me." Did it have an afect on you professionally? You already had a helluva sizable stable, but did you have even more people knocking on your door? "It doesn't seem like it propels you as far as you might think. Most of us who've won it have underestimated the impact that it has with the people (outside of racing) that you come in contact with. But as far as just being fooded with horses, I haven't seen that. And I didn't see it with some of my colleagues, either." But you're suddenly recognized outside the racing world? "Exactly. I remember I was supposed to do . . . I want to say Letterman . . . the day after the Derby (in '88). I had to catch a fight to New York. I made a run to the airport. I was running late post-Derby morning, and I got in just before they were going to close the plane. As I entered, the whole plane erupted with applause. Te stewardess says, 'Tey're glad you fnally got here.' And the pilot says, 'No, this guy just won the Kentucky Derby.'" Television ratings for the Derby are up. And it gets enormous crowds. Why does that race succeed in a sport that's struggling? "I think it touches everybody, even the casual racegoer. People will ask what I do. 'I'm in the horse business; I train racehorses.' And the next thing, always, is, 'Did you ever run in the Derby or win it?' Tat's the only thing that the casual fan can relate to." Why doesn't that kind of enthusiasm extend to the sport in general? "I think the sport is a little bit complicated. I relate it to the World Series of Poker. Tere's more to it than meets the eye. You can go to the races and enjoy it, but if you're going to be a regular fan, so to speak, you have to get into the understanding of the Racing Form and the statistics. Tey're pretty in-depth and intimidating." With the advent of the Internet, access to instantly watch races, all the info, might it tap into the some of the poker nerds who like that kind of thing? "Tere might be some of that. Going to the races live is still a wonderful experience, the pageantry of it. But the reality is, the majority of the people, the racing nerds, they couldn't care less about B y 11 on a cool, sun-soaked St. Patrick's Day morning on the Oaklawn Park backside in Hot Springs, Ark., Darrell Wayne Lukas is almost halfway done with his day. He started at 4. He's running a little late for an appointment, having had an errand to run with his wife after training hours at the track. Te Lukas barn is in the southeast corner of Oaklawn's backside, easily identifed by the trainer's trademark neuroses: cleanliness and attention to detail. Newly planted frs encircle the stable, which is also outlined by a walking path of fresh mulch. Foggy-clear Visqueen, tightly wrapped as if it went up today, shields barn windows from the unpredictable southern Arkansas weather. Porcelain-white paint trims it all. Inside, the oval under the shedrow is an obsessive gardener's bed of dark, fnely raked soil, the better to cushion those high-priced hooves. It's the Ritz-Carlton of racing barns. If you were a horse, you'd want to stay here. In the trainer's small ofce, slightly bigger than a broom closet but somehow with room for two desks and four chairs, longtime assistant trainer Sebastian Nickols reviews the day's workouts with another Lukas hand, going over upcoming schedules — for horses and humans. By house rule, conversation is limited to the verbal transfer of essential information. Who's of when. Which horse works when. Tey invite me to sit and wait for "Wayne" while they study in silence. Te ofce walls are a gallery of highlighted, felt-tipped charts and graphs, Team Lukas organized by letter-sized copy paper, each sheet tacked up straight with no overlap. Within the 10 minutes Nickols assured me it would take Lukas to arrive, he does. He wears jeans and boots, one of those Michelin Man pufy jackets in light tan and a baseball cap that reads "Formula 707" — an equine nutritional supplement company endorsed by Lukas — above the black bill. He apologizes. "I knew I had something scheduled this morning," says Lukas, whose white-gray hair poking out from under his ball cap is about the only thing that gives away his 78 years. "I just had it eating at me in the back of my mind." He takes a seat at one of the desks and crosses one booted leg over the other, leaving his jacket zipped all the way up even though the weather has already warmed from sleety and snowy early this morning to near 50 degrees. "What can I do for you?" he asks. I want to talk Derby, among other things. Te man has won four of them, after all, and nine other Triple Crown races, including last year's Preakness Stakes with Oxbow. Two days earlier, one of Lukas' promising Derby horses this spring, Strong Mandate, fnished a close fourth after a scrum of a stretch run in the Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn. Te colt is being pointed to the Arkansas Derby on April 12. Ten? Well, you know the routine. A headline in the New York Times last year described Lukas as "racing's public persona." He seems to embrace the role at this stage of his life. He should. Over a 40-year career as a Toroughbred trainer — his frst winner came in 1974 in a stakes race at what is now Fairplex in Pomona, Calif. — Lukas has won more than 4,500 races and $267 million in purses. Not bad for a former high school basketball coach in LaCrosse, Wis. But more than any other horse trainer, Lukas, who now makes his home in Louisville, is about more than his staggering statistics. It's no exaggeration to call him both the face and the voice of the sport. 44-63.indd 54 3/19/14 5:22 PM

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