Like any great coach, Antigo native D. Wayne Lukas knows how to work his bench.
Lukas, known throughout thoroughbred horse racing as “The Coach” for his long-ago career as a high school basketball instructor, netted his seventh Preakness Stakes win Saturday with Seize the Gray, a colt considered a second-stringer in his barn at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Md. Dismissed by handicappers, the son of Arrogate romped through the Preakness slop off odds of 9-1.
“It never gets old at this level,” Lukas said on NBC. “I love the competition.”
The victory made Lukas, 88, the oldest trainer ever to win the second jewel of the Triple Crown and places him one win short of Bob Baffert’s eight wins in the classic.
“I’m only one behind him — I warned him already,” Lukas said. “It never gets old at this level, and I love the competition. I love to get in here with the rest of them.”
As Lukas made his may to the winner’s circle, he was interrupted repeatedly by well-wishers, including the trainers of some of the horses he just defeated.
“I think they’re trying to get rid of me,” Lukas said. “They probably want me to retire. I don’t think that’ll happen.”
And while Lukas is certainly among the old-school trainers in racing, Seize the Gray’s owners, the My Racehorse group, is among the newest. The colt is owned by over 2,500 people, each of whom paid $127 for a micro-share and a chance to revel in ownership glory previously reserved mainly for Arab sheiks, old-money racing hierarchy, and deep-pocketed tech and business magnates.
“I just couldn’t be happier for every single one of them,” MyRacehorse founder and CEO Michael Behrens said. “We had some big expectations, but this exceeds all those expectations.”
”The thing about it is every time we’ve been lucky to win one of these that it’s been with a different client, and so that is what makes it special,” Lukas said. “That’s what makes this one special. 2,000 people plus (as owners). The one before that was a different client, different client. That’s what I get paid for, to let them live the dream.”
Seize the Grey ended Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan’s Triple Crown bid by going wire to wire to win. The strapping grey colt took advantage of the muddy track just as Lukas hoped he would, pulling off the upset in a second consecutive impressive start two weeks after romping in a race on the Derby undercard at Churchill Downs. One of the longest shots on the board, Seize the Grey moved to the lead immediately out of the starting gate and never looked back, finishing 2 1/4 lengths ahead of Mystik Dan in 1:56.82.
“I thought his action down the backside was beautiful, and I knew that he was handling the track,” Lukas said. “I said, ‘Watch out, he’s not going to quit.’”
Mystik Dan finished second in the field of eight horses running in the $2 million, 1 3/16-mile race. After falling short of going back-to-back following his win by a nose in the Kentucky Derby, it would be a surprise if he runs in the Belmont Stakes on June 8 at Saratoga Race Course.
“Wayne’s an amazing guy,” McPeek, who trains Mystik Dan, said on NBC. “If I’m going to get beat, it’s fine to get beat by him. Over the years, I’ve been beat by him plenty of times.”
No one in the race’s 149-year history has saddled more horses in the Preakness than Lukas, with 48 since debuting in 1980 and winning that one with Codex. He had two in this time, with Just Steel closing to fifth after a 17th place effort in the Kentucky Derby. That colt was observed to be slightly off after the race. Diagnostics were performed according to Mike Rogers, acting president and general manager for 1/ST Racing. While the type and extent of the injury were not immediately available, 1/ST officials said the situation is not serious or life-threatening.
Seize the Grey paid $21.60 to win, $8.40 to place and $4.40 to show. Mystik Dan paid $4.20 and $2.80 after finishing a head in front of third place Catching Freedom, who paid $3.20 to show.
This was the last Preakness held at Pimlico Race Course as it stands before demolition begins on the historic but deteriorating track, which will still hold the 150th running of it next year mid-construction.
That process is already well underway at Belmont Park, which is why the final leg of the Triple Crown, on June 8, is happening at Saratoga for the first time and is being shortened to 1 1/4 miles because of the shape of the course. Kentucky Derby second-place finisher Sierra Leone, a half step from winning, is expected to headline that field, though Lukas said he’d wait to see about Seize the Grey also running. The trainer has won the race four times.
“We’ll definitely consider it,” he said. “A couple of factors. You know the fact that it’s a mile-and-a-quarter this year. It’s at Saratoga. I like that. I like the Saratoga surface. The whole situation at Saratoga I like. We run there every year with our stable, and I’m sure that those officials will be contacting us. I would say at this point we’re strongly leaning in that direction.”
Horse racing started in Antigo shortly after the community was founded, with trotting and running competitions down Superior Street dating to the first agricultural fair in 1886. By the 1940s the “Leaky Roof Circuit” brought racing to communities across the region, including at the Langlade County Fair where Lukas was a regular rider.
Lukas graduated from Antigo High School in 1953 and earned a master’s degree in education from the University of Wisconsin. He was a teacher and head basketball coach in high school for nine years, while spending his summers training and racing horses in South Dakota. In 1966, he began training Quarter Horses full time, developing 23 champions before turning to Thoroughbreds in 1978.
His statistics are astonishing. He was the first trainer to earn more than $100 million in purse money and has been the year’s top money winner 14 times. Lukas has won the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer four times and was inducted into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame in 1999. In 2013 he was awarded the Eclipse Award of Merit for his accomplishments
In 2013, after Lukas’ Oxbow pulled a Preakness surprise and ended his 13-year drought without a Triple Crown race win, he told The New York Times he wanted to break “Sunny” Jim Fitzsimmons’ record as the oldest trainer to win one at age 82.
“That’s one to gun for,” Lukas said. “It will mean I’m still in the game, and they haven’t furrowed me underneath the racetrack somewhere.”
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