There was no aspect of the Thoroughbred industry that the legendary D. Wayne Lukas left untouched – and that includes the bloodstock and commercial engines of the sport. While training for many top stables in their heyday – including William T. Young’s Overbrook Farm, multiple iterations of historic Calumet Farm, the beloved Robert and Beverly Lewis, global power Coolmore, and many others – Lukas developed a number of top broodmares and stallions, and, as their offspring became available, was an influential player in the sales ring.
“His impact at Keeneland – where he was a presence for nearly 50 years – is not likely to be seen again,” Keeneland president Shannon Arvin said in a statement issued Sunday. “Since buying his first horse here in 1977, he influenced yearling sales through his emphasis on conformation and body type while affecting the way horses were bred and prepped to produce yearlings that would appeal to him.”
Broodmare pipeline
Top breeding programs are dependent on the quality of their broodmares, and Lukas developed a number of top race fillies who were then put back into their respective programs, their racing records earning them the right to visit the country’s top stallions and thus have every chance to succeed.
Perhaps the most significant mare Lukas trained was Terlingua, one of his first Thoroughbred stars. The filly was by Secretariat, but was out of the lightning-fast Crimson Saint, who Lukas was familiar with, as she was trained by his former father-in-law Rod Kaufman. Lukas purchased Terlingua for $275,000 at the 1977 Keeneland July yearling sale on behalf of L.R. French Jr.
“I thought about her so many times before going to Keeneland that I knew exactly what she looked like,” Lukas told the Blood-Horse in 1978. “I could see the cross of that large horse on that mare with all that conformation for speed, and I had a picture of her in my mind.”
Terlingua was precocious and wickedly fast, winning seven stakes, including graded scores as a juvenile in the Hollywood Lassie, Hollywood Juvenile Championship, and Del Mar Debutante. She was later acquired by Young’s Overbrook Farm, and would go on to produce his influential foundation stallion, Storm Cat.
Other successful broodmares trained by Lukas, in alphabetical order, were:
◗ Champion Althea, who created her own branch of blue hen Courtly Dee’s family line. Althea’s descendants include champions Covfefe, Festival of Light, and Yamanin Paradise, along with Grade 1 winners Acoma, Arch, and Balletto.
◗ Kentucky Oaks winner Blush With Pride, whose multiple stakes winners included Better Than Honour – who is one of just nine mares to produce multiple individual winners of Triple Crown races.
◗ Grade 1 winner Cara Rafaela, the dam of champion and successful sire Bernardini.
◗ Young’s champion Flanders, who produced another champion for the stable in Surfside.
◗ Champion Serena’s Song, dam of six stakes winners, led by Group 1 winner Sophisticat. Many of her daughters and sons went on to successful breeding careers, and her family tree is responsible for champion Honor Code.
Some top racemares never truly replicate themselves on the racetrack. Thus was the case with two of Lukas’s best-known fillies, 1986 Horse of the Year Lady’s Secret and 1988 Kentucky Derby winner Winning Colors. However, both had daughters who produced stakes horses. Poignantly, Winning Colors’s daughter Silver Colors produced multiple stakes winners, including Princess Aliyah, one of Lukas’s final starters in the month of June.
Stallions
Although fellow Hall of Famer Jonathan Sheppard trained Storm Cat, Lukas helped make the horse a leading sire for Young, a client who became a dear friend. Lukas conditioned several of the stallion’s standouts, including Overbrook homebred Cat Thief, winner of the 1999 Breeders’ Cup Classic. Tabasco Cat, co-bred and co-owned by Overbrook, won the 1994 Preakness and Belmont Stakes. Lukas also trained Overbook homebred Grade 1 winners Harlan and Tactical Cat by the signature stallion.
“He produced some of the great horses we were able to train,” Lukas told Daily Racing Form upon Young’s death in 2004. “But, in retrospect, that’s a very small part of a much bigger picture. Anyone who met Bill Young was a better person for it. I know he was a great stabilizing force for me. I have a tendency to get a little opinionated and go off the deep end every once in a while, and he was a stabilizer against that. I don’t think there’s another person who could have had more influence on my career and in my life in general than Bill Young did.”
Lukas also trained Storm Cat’s Grade 1 winners Hennessy – an Overbrook-bred colt who was sold to the Lewises – Consolidator, High Yield, and Sharp Cat, taking the latter through her first five of what would become seven Grade 1 wins.
Harlan and Hennessy went on to launch important branches of the Storm Cat sireline that keep it prominent today. Harlan is the grandsire of six-time reigning leading sire and emerging sire-of-sires Into Mischief. Hennessy is the grandsire of Scat Daddy, whose prominent sons at stud include Triple Crown winner Justify.
Lukas took over the career of Gulch for his championship season in 1988. Lukas then made that champion a classic sire, saddling Thunder Gulch to win the 1995 Derby and Belmont. Thunder Gulch was a classic sire in his own right, siring champion Point Given. Overbrook colorbearer Grindstone gave Lukas back-to-back Derby wins in 1996, then sired classic winner Birdstone, a classic sire himself.
Other successful stallions trained by Lukas include, but are not limited to, Capote, Carson City, Dynaformer, Is It True, Mt. Livermore, Proud Citizen, Southern Halo, and Yes It’s True.
Sales ring
Of course, many well-bred standouts from these families went on to the sales ring, where Lukas was again poised for success. The trainer was known for a sharp eye, which he began developing from a very early age.
In his youth, he and his friend Clyde Rice, father of trainer Linda Rice, would buy mustangs headed to the slaughterhouse, break them to ride, and resell them for a profit. As a Thoroughbred trainer, Lukas combined a marketing approach with his horsemanship. His salesmanship allowed him to effectively recruit new owners, including those with deep pockets.
“Wayne introduced the high-dollar/sales-topper power stable to U.S. racing,” trainer Tom Van Berg recently told the Louisville Courier-Journal.
So prolific was Lukas in his first full decade in the Thoroughbred industry that he inspired a book, “Lukas At Auction,” published by Joe Bagan in 1990. Bagan calculated that in the 1980s, Lukas and his clients spent $103 million, combined, at the yearling sales. These horses then generated $162 million in earnings, sale proceeds, and residual value, a solid return on investment even when factoring in training costs.
“If you train your eye, there are certain common threads that run through the good horses,” Lukas told Bagan.
According to the Keeneland media guide, which includes statistics from its flagship September yearling sale since 1980, Lukas was the sale’s leading buyer in 1988, 1989, 1990, and 1993. Those figures include only those horses where he signed his own name on the sales ticket, and not in the name of a client, meaning his overall impact could have been higher.
One of Lukas’s most free-spending clients in the 1980s was former San Diego Chargers owner Gene Klein, the owner of Lady’s Secret and Winning Colors.
“Gene is dead game,” Lukas told Sports Illustrated in 1988. “All my life I’ve put my head on the chopping block and it has worked. Gene has done the same thing. He’s not afraid to take a chance. That’s why we get along so well. He’ll question me on the pros and cons of something, but if I say to him, ‘Gene, this is a good deal,’ he’ll say ‘Go!’ and he never backs up.”
Lukas outlived many of his major clients, such as Young, Klein, and the Lewises, leading to some quieter years in the auction arena. But in recent years, he was back in the ring with new owners, including the high-rolling BC Stables of Brian Coelho and John Bellinger, who owned his Derby and Preakness starter American Promise this year. Lukas was also an early trainer behind microshare ownership experience groups. He trained for the Churchill Downs Racing Club and, more recently, for MyRacehorse, for whom he saddled 2024 Preakness winner Seize the Grey.
Ever optimistic, Lukas was still traversing the sale grounds and purchasing yearlings last year. He signed for multiple horses for BC Stables and MyRacehorse at the elite Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale. Then, back at his Keeneland stomping grounds, he bought eight horses for BC Stables for a combined $2,925,000, and four under his own name for $615,000.
Lukas also continued to welcome new owners. Lisa Lazarus (who shares a name with the HISA executive) spun off from MyRacehorse to begin buying horses in her own name, and Lukas signed for a $550,000 colt for her at Keeneland. The colt – now under the care of Bas Nicholl – is aptly named Track Legend.