Darrell Wayne Lukas (born September 2, 1935, in Antigo, Wisconsin) is an American horse trainer and a U.S. Racing Hall of Fame inductee. He has won twenty Breeders' Cup races, received five Eclipse Awards for his accomplishments, and his horses have won 25 year-end Eclipse Awards. He was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2007.
Born and raised on a small farm, Lukas grew up with an interest in horses. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a master's degree in education then taught at La Crosse, WI Logan High School where he was a head basketball coach. He was initiated into the Kappa Sigma fraternity while an undergraduate. [3] He began training quarter horses in California in 1968 and after 10 years of achievement that saw him train 24 world champions, he switched to training thoroughbreds. The first trainer to earn more than $100 million in purse money, he has been the year's top money winner 14 times.[ citation needed ] Lukas got his big break in 1980 when he won the Preakness Stakes on Codex. His horses have won the Kentucky Derby four times, the Preakness Stakes on seven occasions, and have claimed victory four times in the Belmont Stakes, including winning all three of the Classics in 1995 with Thunder Gulch (Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes) and Timber Country (Preakness), making him the first trainer to sweep the Triple Crown Classic races with two different horses in a season. In 2013, he surpassed Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons for the most Triple Crown race victories, with 14. In 2024, the 88-year-old Lukas broke Fitzsimmons' record as the oldest trainer to win a Triple Crown race when Seize the Grey won the Preakness Stakes. [4]
He has won Breeder's Cup races a record 20 times. Fillies Lukas has trained have won the Kentucky Oaks four times. Three of his horses—Lady's Secret in 1986, Criminal Type in 1990 and Charismatic in 1999—won the Eclipse Award for Horse of the Year. He has a total of 25 horses that have won various Eclipse Awards. [2] He has won the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer four times. In 1999, the same year his horse Charismatic came within 2 lengths of the Triple Crown, he was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2007, [5] becoming the first person to enter both the Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse halls of fame. In 2013 he was awarded the Eclipse Award of Merit for his accomplishments. [2] In 1988, Lukas received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Gene Klein. [6]
In 2014, at age 78, in his acceptance speech for the 2013 Eclipse Award of Merit, he stated, "[w]hen they start giving you awards...they are trying to get you to retire. Well, you young trainers get ready because I'm not retiring. We're coming after you so you'd better get up a little more early in the morning from now on. We're coming after you with a vengeance." [2]
Lukas has been married four times. He had one son, Jeff (1957–2016), and two grandchildren with his first wife. In December 1993, Lukas' derby contender Tabasco Cat seriously injured Jeff Lukas, who worked for his father as an assistant trainer and was the elder Lukas' hard-driving right-hand man. In a shedrow accident at Santa Anita Park, the colt broke loose and when Jeff Lukas tried to stop him, the horse slammed into him, throwing him into the air and when Jeff landed on the concrete, he suffered a skull fracture which left him in a coma for several weeks. He suffered permanent brain damage and had changes in personality, vision loss and damage to his memory. By spring of 1994, he had recovered enough to attempt a return to horse racing but after a series of less-demanding jobs ending in 2003, it was clear he could not work safely around racehorses. He also tried living and working near horse farms but his disabilities were too severe for him to be safe around horses at all. He ultimately moved to Atoka, Oklahoma in 2007 to work for David Burrage, who had been the accountant and general manager for Lukas Racing Stables. By that time, Burrage was a banker and owned the First Bank in Atoka, which employed Lukas. His father bought him a home there and Jeff lived a quiet life until his death at age 58 in March 2016. [7] [8]
Lukas suffered with COVID-19 in 2020. However, he later recovered from the illness. [1]
Gary Lynn Stevens is an American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey, actor, and sports analyst. He became a professional jockey in 1979 and rode his first of three Kentucky Derby winners in 1988. He had nine wins in Triple Crown races, winning the Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes three times each, as well as ten Breeders' Cup races. He was also a nine-time winner of the Santa Anita Derby. He entered the United States Racing Hall of Fame in 1997. Combining his U.S. and international wins, Stevens had over 5,000 race wins by 2005, and reached his 5,000th North American win on February 15, 2015.
Patrick Alan "Pat" Day is a retired American jockey. He is a four-time winner of the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Jockey and was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 1999. Day won nine Triple Crown races and 12 Breeders' Cup races. He was once the leader for career Breeders' Cup wins though he was later surpassed as the events were expanded after he retired.
Easy Goer was an American Champion Hall of Fame Thoroughbred racehorse known for earning American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt honors in 1988, and defeating 1989 American Horse of the Year Sunday Silence in the Belmont Stakes by eight lengths. Both horses were later voted into the American Hall of Fame. He is known for his excellence in New York, with running the fastest mile on dirt by any three-year-old in the history in the Gotham Stakes with a time of 1:32+2⁄5, the only horse in racing history to win the Belmont, Whitney, Travers, Woodward and Jockey Club Gold Cup, among others.
Lazaro Sosa Barrera was a Cuban-born American Hall of Fame thoroughbred racehorse trainer.
Robert B. "Bob" Lewis was an American businessman who owned a number of champion Thoroughbred racehorses during the 1990s and 2000s.
John R. Velazquez is a Puerto Rican jockey in Thoroughbred horse racing. He began his career in Puerto Rico and moved to New York in 1990. In 2004 and 2005 he was the United States Champion Jockey by earnings and both years was given the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Jockey. He was inducted into the Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2012, rode his 5,000th winner in 2013, and became the leading money-earning jockey in the history of the sport in 2014.
Todd Pletcher is an American thoroughbred horse trainer. He won the Eclipse Award eight times as Trainer of the Year, four of these in consecutive years. His horses Super Saver (2010) and Always Dreaming (2017) won the Kentucky Derby. He also won the Belmont Stakes with Rags to Riches (2007), Palace Malice (2013), Tapwrit (2017) and Mo Donegal (2022). He also trained Malathaat who won the 2021 Kentucky Oaks.
William T. Young was an American businessman and major owner of thoroughbred racehorses.
Steven Mark Asmussen is an American Thoroughbred racehorse trainer. The leading trainer in North America by wins, he is a two-time winner of the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer and was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2016. His horses have won the Breeders' Cup Classic, Preakness Stakes, Belmont Stakes, Travers Stakes, Breeders' Cup Distaff, Kentucky Oaks and Dubai World Cup.
Tabasco Cat was an American Thoroughbred racehorse. He was best known for his performances in 1994 when he won the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes, the second and third legs of the Triple Crown Series.
Raise a Native was an undefeated Thoroughbred racehorse that was named 1963 champion two-year-old colt in the Turf and Sport Digest poll and was the highest rated juvenile in the Experimental Free Handicap. He sired 74 stakes winners, including Majestic Prince and Alydar. In its 1988 obituary for the horse, The New York Times called him "the most influential sire of American Thoroughbred stallions over the last 20 years".
Timber Country was an American Thoroughbred racehorse who was the first horse to ever win the Breeders' Cup Juvenile and American Triple Crown Classic Race when he won the 1995 Preakness Stakes.
Gulch was an American thoroughbred racehorse and sire. Owned and bred by Peter M. Brant, he was sired by the outstanding North American stud and graded stakes race winner Mr. Prospector out of the graded stakes race winning Rambunctious mare Jameela.
The National Thoroughbred Racing Association Moment of the Year award, first awarded in 1999, celebrates or honors one moment that occurred during a given year that most thoroughly exemplifies the spirit and ethos of the sport of Thoroughbred horse racing in the United States.
Open Mind was an American Thoroughbred racing filly. In 1988, she won the Eclipse Award for American Champion Two-Year-Old Filly. In 1989, she won the award as American Champion Three-Year-Old Filly. In her third year, she also won the American Triple Tiara of Thoroughbred Racing.
Cat Thief is an American Thoroughbred racehorse. He is the son of Storm Cat, an outstanding Champion sire and the grandson of both the 20th Century's most important sire, Northern Dancer and whose damsire was the U.S. Triple Crown champion, Secretariat. Cat Thief's dam was the multiple stakes winner, Train Robbery, a daughter of U.S. Racing Hall of Fame inductee Alydar.
Chad C. Brown is an American racehorse trainer. Brown is widely regarded as one of the elite trainers in the world, having won four consecutive Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer in the United States 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. In 2019, he also achieved the highest position in the World Training Standings according to the Thoroughbred Racing Commentary (TRC) Global Rankings, becoming the first and only American trainer to be recognized as the World's Number One Trainer. Brown has secured two Preakness Stakes victories with Cloud Computing in 2017 and Early Voting in 2022, and narrowly missing a Kentucky Derby victory in 2024 with Sierra Leone. Early in his career, many sought to pigeonhole him as a "turf trainer" who specialized in fillies and mares. However, Brown's success has become so diversified that he has demonstrated the ability to win at any distance, with any sex, and on any surface. Brown has trained 19 Breeders' Cup winners, including Sierra Leone, the 2024 Breeders' Cup Classic Champion, further showcasing his dominance across the sport. Over his career, he has also trained thirteen Eclipse Award winners, including, Big Blue Kitten, Lady Eli, Flintshire, Goodnight Olive, and Horse of the Year Bricks and Mortar.
Mine That Bird is a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who won the 2009 Kentucky Derby at 50-1 odds and came second in the Preakness Stakes and third in the Belmont Stakes. He had earnings of $2,228,637 and was inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2015.
Dogwood Stable was an American Thoroughbred racehorse partnership. Founded by W. Cothran "Cot" Campbell in 1969, Dogwood was widely viewed to have introduced the concept of group thoroughbred ownership in the United States by offering shares in a racehorse to multiple individuals. Campbell estimated that more than 1,200 individuals had taken part as members of the stable.
Melvin Frederick "Mel" Stute was an American trainer of Thoroughbred racehorses. On December 11, 2010, at Hollywood Park Racetrack, he won the 2000th race of a career that includes a win in the second leg of the U.S. Triple Crown series, the Preakness Stakes in 1986, the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies that same year, and the 1987 Breeders' Cup Sprint.
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