He’s Going to Try and Try Again

I forget whether Captain Ahab finally got the great white whale or not. Javert never caught up with Jean Valjean in “Les Miserables,” did he? Did that railroad detective ever catch Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? Sir Galahad never found the Holy Grail. Cortez never got to Eldorado.

And you wonder if Wayne Lukas will ever win the Kentucky Derby.

Magnificent obsessions abound in literary and real history. Sometimes they’re poignant, other times merely laughable. Some men hanker for cruel women, others want to find a lost mine in the mountains. When Scotland Yard burns to find Jack the Ripper or J. Edgar Hoover wants to trap John Dillinger, the world can understand.

But what Wayne Lukas wants with the Kentucky Derby is less clear. There are bigger purses, tougher fields, longer races.

There were probably whiter whales than Moby Dick, too.

Lukas sent 1,500 horses to the post last year. Two hundred and fifty-nine of them won, 231 came in second and 210 third. They earned a record $12,345,180. He won 64 stakes races and the Eclipse Award, emblematic of trainer of the year.

He needs a Kentucky Derby like Rockefeller needs another oil well. But, he’ll probably never rest till he gets it. He would probably give most of those other stakes back just to get one.

It all began innocently enough a few years ago when Lukas had a 3-year-old colt named Codex. Codex might have been the best in the country that year, but somebody forgot to nominate him for the Kentucky Derby.

When he won the Preakness, Lukas was startled by the coast-to-coast outcry that he might have had a Triple Crown winner--Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont--in the barn and let it get away.

Everybody contemplates his place in history now and then, and it became clear to Wayne Lukas that his might have something to do with how he did in the Kentucky Derby. It’s not entirely fair. Horsemen don’t like to be rushed or pinned down to a specific date or place in their getting a horse and a meeting ready at the same time, but Wayne Lukas got the message. Win the first Saturday in May or go to the back of the bus.

He sent out a horse named Partez the next year. He was a close but well-beaten third, losing some ground when the rider, Sandy Hawley, misjudged the finish line and rose in the irons at the 16th pole, but close enough so that Lukas could figure this was an easy wheel.

He came back with a runner named Muttering the next year, and the game began to get complex. Muttering had Laffit Pincay, no less, in the saddle and a clear track, but he quit in the stretch.

Lukas decided what he needed was a stronger hand. He went to the whip the next year, when he came back to Kentucky with three on the string. One of them, Marfa, was the favorite, no less, but he finished fifth. The two others, Balboa Native and Total Departure, finished 9th and last--20th--respectively.

The next year, Wayne tried a new tack. He came back with two fillies. They went off as favorites but finished 8th and 19th.

This was getting embarrassing. Lukas’ reputation was such that he had only to show up with a horse in hand and the public made them favorites. They took more money down with them than the Titanic.

Wayne came in ’85 with Tank’s Prospect, a horse that was going to be good enough to win the Preakness--Wayne’s second--but in Kentucky he tired so badly he drifted out to knock another horse, Stephan’s Odyssey, out of

contention. At least, he was only 11-1 and put no bettors on building ledges when he ran a disappointing seventh.

Last year, Lukas thought he at last had the puzzle solved. Badger Land was second choice at 5 to 2 but, like the rest, quit in the stretch.

When Wayne got to Louisville last week, the locals were ready with the ripe fruit. Wayne was bringing three more horses, Capote, the 2-year-old champion; a horse called War, and the Derby Trial winner, On the Line.

The Louisville Courier Journal was on Lukas’ case. Unkindly. The word blunder crept into the general evaluations, and the paper ran a large box noting maliciously that Lukas’ record was 0 and 9 in the Derby and it dared to question his training techniques.

Widely quoted was the derisive snort of rival trainer Woody Stephens, who loudly dismissed Capote’s one workout at 1:14 by saying “(Jockey) Cordero can’t go that slow.”

Lukas was not amused. In his first predawn confrontation with the press, he questioned some of their Derby credentials, too. The conversation got heated.

Lukas seemed to have tried everything to climb his personal mountaintop. First, his California campaigning had not worked--Muttering, Marfa. Then, Arkansas traveling had failed to prevail--Althea won the Arkansas Derby. Running females proved no solution, either.

This year, Lukas tried the sophisticated New York route. He took Capote to the Gotham and the Wood Memorial, classic routes to the Derby winner’s circle. He brought War to Keeneland for the Blue Grass, and dropped On the Line in the Trial, which used to be the tightener for the eminently successful Calumet Farms, which had had eight Derby winners.

Wayne may have to mine South America next. Or, Outer Mongolia. Lukas’ horses finished 10th, 13th and 16th this year. Capote didn’t beat a horse--unless you count Demons Begone, who pulled up after he began to bleed after entering the backstretch.

Now 0 and 12, Lukas must wish he’d never met this old harridan, the Kentucky Derby.

Captain Ahab lost a leg to his nemesis. Wayne has lost only a little luster, and seven races. Will he leave the field? Not terribly likely. Obsessions live as long as the obsessed.

His horses may quit in the stretch, but it is not likely this trainer will.