Lukas had been hospitalized<\/a> with a severe MRSA blood infection that caused significant damage to his heart and digestive system and worsened pre-existing chronic conditions.<\/p>\n\u201cWayne devoted his life not only to horses but to the industry \u2014 developing generations of horsemen and horsewomen and growing the game by inviting unsuspecting fans into the winner\u2019s circle,\u201d his family said in a statement. \u201cWhether he was boasting about a maiden 2-year-old as the next Kentucky Derby winner or offering quiet words of advice before a big race, Wayne brought heart, grace, and grit to every corner of the sport. His final days were spent at home in Kentucky, where he chose peace, family, and faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lukas won 15 Triple Crown races, including the Kentucky Derby four times. Only good friend Bob Baffert has more Triple Crown victories, and Lukas owns a record-tying 20 in the Breeders\u2019 Cup World Championships.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole secret of this game, I think, is being able to read the horse: Read what he needs, what he doesn\u2019t need, what he can\u2019t do, what he can do,\u201d Lukas said in May before his 34th and final Preakness Stakes. \u201cThat\u2019s the whole key. Everybody\u2019s got the blacksmith, everybody\u2019s got to the same bed available, the feed man. We all can hire a good jockey. We all can hire a pretty good exercise rider if we\u2019ve got the means, so what the hell is the difference? The horse is the difference and what we do with him in reading him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lukas was affectionately known around the barns and the racetrack as \u201cCoach\u201d because he coached high school basketball before his professional career with horses began. Even with months to go before his 90th birthday, he would get up on his pony in the early morning hours and go out to the track himself, rather than letting his assistants do the day-to-day work.<\/p>\n
Born Darnell Wayne Lukas on Sept. 2, 1935, in Wisconsin as the second of three children, he rose to prominence in the sport with quarter horses in races that are effectively sprints. He moved into thoroughbreds in the late 1970s and won his first Preakness with Codex in 1980.<\/p>\n
Lukas has 4,967 documented victories in thoroughbred racing, with his horses earning more than $310 million from more than 30,600 starts.<\/p>\n
“Today we lost one of the great champions of Churchill Downs and one of the most significant figures in Thoroughbred racing over the last 50 years,\u201d Churchill Downs Inc. CEO Bill Carstanjen said. \u201cWe will miss his humor, his wisdom and his unmatched capacity to thrill the fans with the performances of his horses on our sport\u2019s biggest days.\u201d<\/p>\n
Achieving something of a career renaissance over the past decade, one he credits to finding the right owners willing to spend money on horses, Lukas won the Preakness last year with Seize the Grey. Asked what motivates him to keep doing his job well into his late 80s, he gave a pep talk fit for a locker room before a big game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you have a passion, you eliminate all the excuses,\u201d Lukas said. \u201cThat\u2019s how it works. You get up early. You go without a meal. You drive. You go without sleep \u2014 as long as you got the passion. Don\u2019t let that sofa pull you down. It\u2019s a little easy when that alarm goes off to say, \u2018Oh my God, I don\u2019t know if I really want to do this today.\u2019 Erase that. The most important decision you\u2019ll ever make in your life is your attitude decision. Make it early, and make the right one.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP horse racing: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/horse-racing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"D. Wayne Lukas, the Hall of Famer who became one of the most accomplished trainers in the history…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[23126,347,57,23125,23124,62,61,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-26367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-23126","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-general-news","11":"tag-horse-racing","12":"tag-kentucky-derby","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-u-s-news","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114770730372946984","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}