At 88, Lukas Aiming For Future Success

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY — This is not a new story. The calendar flips to September, the Saratoga season is in its final few days and Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas is having another birthday.

Lukas turns 88 Saturday and the beat goes on. He will get up at 3 a.m. and within an hour will arrive at his barn located a couple of hundred yards from the Oklahoma training track. As usual, he will be in the saddle on his pony accompanying his horses as they go out for their morning exercise. In the afternoon, with a big cowboy hat on his head, he will be in the paddock at Saratoga Race Course to saddle a couple more starters.

Forget about a party. Lukas said he has to make sure that his wife Laurie is in line with his desire to treat Sept. 2 as pretty much just another day. He doesn't want any surprises.

“What we do here is we get a big old cake and we put it out there on the picnic table, let everybody get one of those plates over there and just have at it,” he said. “That's it.”

It is impossible to know who has been the oldest trainer to send a horse to the track since Thoroughbred racing commenced at Saratoga in 1863. At this point, Lukas is definitely not the oldest. The legendary James “Sunny Jim” Fitzsimmons reached his 88th birthday before the 1962 Saratoga season. In one of those can-you-believe-this Saratoga stats, Fitzsimmons was the leading trainer at Saratoga that summer, his finale upstate before retiring the following June. He locked up the title, which only took nine victories during the 24-day season, with three wins on the next-to-last day of the meet, Aug. 24. As the trainer for the Phipps family, Fitzsimmons had top-quality stock in his barn. Four of his nine wins were in stakes: the Schuylerville, Adirondack, Bernard Baruch and Seneca.

Fitzsimmons, who died at the age of 91 in 1966, switched from an undistinguished career as a jockey to training horses and continued on with distinction in parts of eight decades. He was the leading trainer at Saratoga four times and the national earnings leader five times. His record of 13 of Triple Crown race victories, stood for 56 years until Lukas picked up his 14th in 2013.

Lukas was a school teacher and coach before going full-time into training Quarter Horses in 1969. Equibase stats show him starting his career training Thoroughbreds in 1974. He has 4,910 victories and over $292 million in purse earnings. Once he got rolling with his nationwide Thoroughbred stable, he became the gold standard and among his many other successes, led the nation in earnings 14 times in a span of 15 years.

Decades ago, Lukas made it clear that he had no intention to retire and has continued on. While he is in Saratoga, he likes to play the machines at the nearby Saratoga Casino.

“If I get an afternoon off, I'm so bored,” he said. “That's why I end up in the casino. I've got to have another challenge so I go in there and try to beat them where the odds are really bad. I don't even handle an afternoon off very good let alone if I woke up at nine o'clock and had breakfast and wondered what the rest of the day was going to be.”

Lukas said continuing to do what he has been doing all these years–getting up in the middle of the night, climbing into the saddle and operating his stable–are elements of the elixir that has kept him going. He's not about to stop.

“I think those people that back off, every one of my friends colleagues and so forth that I saw retire and back off, at say, 70, every one of them went downhill,” he said.

In the last 30 years, five of his top owners have died, which has forced him to restructure his business. He said he is proud that at his age he is still able to compete at the top at tracks in Kentucky, New York and Arkansas.

“But here's the thing: I've eliminated the big stable,” he said. “I've limited it to 40 head. That allows me to be hands-on and personal with every horse, much different than when I had the assistants like Todd [Pletcher] and Mark Hennig and all these kids underneath me. So, I limit it to 40. It gives me great satisfaction. I see every horse.”

After a long run at Saratoga, Lukas skipped the 2020 and 2021 seasons due to a combination of the Covid-19 pandemic and a drop in quality of his stable. He returned last summer, compiled a solid 7-6-2 record from 31 starters and had purse earnings of $774,927. His GI Kentucky Oaks winner Secret Oath (Arrogate) was the star of the stable, but ended up second to Nest (Curlin) in the GI Coaching Club American Oaks and the GI Alabama S. Secret Oath is still with Lukas, was second in the GI Personal Ensign S., and he is confident she will run well in the GI Juddmonte Spinster S. at Keeneland.

Not only did he have success on the track in 2022, but with new owners, John Bellinger and Brian Coelho, who operate as BC Stables, he was active at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale.

“We went through a lull there,” Lukas said. “Even though we kept the barn full, we didn't have the quality. Now we have picked up Bellinger and Coelho and we should finish up here in the next couple of years–finish up, I mean until I die–we should finish up pretty good.”

The stable hasn't been quite as strong this summer at Saratoga. Entering Friday it has three wins and 10 seconds from 32 starts and Lukas is hoping for a couple more victories. He will send out a pair of runners on his birthday. On Sunday, he will try to win the GI Spinaway S. for the seventh time with BC's maiden Lady Moscato (Quality Road). Just Steel (Justify) will carry the BC colors in the GI Hopeful S. on closing day Monday. He will be Lukas's 34th starter in the Hopeful, a race he has won a record eight times.

Always looking ahead, Lukas said he expects to have a better-balanced barn in 2024. This year he is heavy with 2-year-olds–14 of the 39 horses he is training–and some of them might put him back on the road to the Triple Crown.

“That's building for the future,” he said. “We've already bought some really good yearlings. If we come back next year and bring 20 to 25 head, there will be some good 3-year-olds in there and some good 2-year-olds in there. We'll be building more to where we used to be.”

If he has his way, Lukas will win a race at Saratoga after his 89th birthday and step past Fitzsimmons again.

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Crichton Says Keeneland Will Not Accept Entry for Spinster

Trainer Rohan Crichton said he has given up on his attempts to run Bajan Girl (Speightstown) in Sunday's GI Juddmonte Spinster S. at Keeneland after being told he would not be allowed to enter.

Crichton is one of five trainers recently suspended by Gulfstream officials after it was found that they were violating house rules regarding clenbuterol. He is in the midst of serving a 30-day suspension and cannot run at any of the tracks owned by The Stronach Group. However, a suspension issued by a racetrack is not reciprocal and, unlike a suspension coming from a regulatory agency, does not have to be honored elsewhere.

The TDN was unable to reach anyone from Keeneland Wednesday night to conform that Bajan Girl cannot run in the race.

“We are not running at Keeneland,” Crichton said. “I'll just sit back now and let the whole process play itself out. One day, we'll be able to look back.”

Crichton said he understood why Keeneland took the position that it did.

“I think the bad publicity around this whole thing caused them to do what they did,” Crichton said. “I understand. It's not their fight and they didn't cause this. It is what it is.”

Earlier in the week, Crichton listed Sunday's GII Beldame S. at Belmont as another possibility for his filly, but he said he would not attempt to enter that race either. When asked to clarify NYRA's position on Bajan Girl, NYRA said that it will discourage any trainer under suspension at Gulfstream from entering races at Belmont.

“NYRA is reviewing the action taken by 1/ST to suspend a group of trainers for violating house rules at Gulfstream Park,” said NYRA spokesman Patrick McKenna. “As that process continues, NYRA is requesting that these trainers immediately refrain from running horses at NYRA tracks for the duration of the suspension imposed by 1/ST. Should those trainers not honor this request, then NYRA will consider a number of options to determine if additional sanctions are warranted.”

Bajan Girl would have been a double-digit longshot in either the Beldame or Spinster. She's never won a stakes race and is coming off a a fourth-place finish in the Love Sign S. at Colonial Downs.

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Keeneland to Review Status of Crichton-Trained Runner for Spinster

Having been suspended at Gulfstream for allegedly violating rules regarding the use of clenbuterol, trainer Rohan Crichton may not be able to run his filly Bajan Girl (Speightstown) in the GI Juddmonte Spinster S. to be run Sunday at Keeneland.

Keeneland released a statement Tuesday indicating that it is considering its options.

“We are in the process of obtaining information regarding the reported suspensions from Gulfstream Park so Keeneland is in a position to make an informed decision about race entries,” it read. “As you know, and as is clear from our actions for 85 years, Keeneland continues to work in furtherance of our mission to perpetuate the best in Thoroughbred racing, which definitely includes fair competition and integrity.”

“Right now she's being trained towards her next start,” Crichton told the Daily Racing Form. “Preferably we'll be able to run her in the Spinster. Our second option is the Beldame. I've been very forthcoming with Keeneland and have asked if they will take my entry. There is also the possibility they would let my owners enter her with one of the other trainers they use in Kentucky.”

The Spinster is a “Win and You're In” race for the GI Breeders' Cup Distaff.

So far as the GII Beldame S. at Belmont, also scheduled to be run Sunday, goes, NYRA spokesman Pat McKenna said the matter is under review.

It was announced last week by Gulfstream that Crichton was among five trainers that were suspended after they were found to be in violation of house rules at the Florida track regarding the use of clenbuterol. The others were Georgina Baxter, Daniel Pita, Peter Walder and Gilberto Zerpa. The finding came after out-of-competition testing, which included hair and blood samples, was performed.

Crichton was suspended by Gulfstream and not by the Florida Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering, which means his status is not clear cut. Unlike a suspension issued by a racing commission, a suspension by one racetrack does not have to be upheld by another. However, as first reported by the Paulick Report, there is a clause in the Keeneland condition book listed under “special notices” that appears to cover the Crichton situation. It reads: “At the discretion of the stewards, and without notice, the entries of any person, or acceptance or transfer of any entries, may be refused.”

Keeneland's barn notes on Sunday and Monday listed Bajan Girl as a probable starter in the Spinster. Tuesday's notes did not include her name among a list of potential starters.

Owned by Robert Slack and Daniel Walters, Bajan Girl was fourth in the Love Sign S. at Colonial Downs in her most recent start and is three-for-13 lifetime.

A native of Jamaica, Crichton was the leading trainer at the 2020 Gulfstream Park West meet. He is 33-for-161 on the year for a winning percentage of 20%.

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