JEFF LUKAS : He’s the Man Behind the Lady, Winning Colors

It was almost fitting the other morning when foggy flying conditions prevented trainer Wayne Lukas from arriving at Belmont Park in time to supervise the last important Preakness workout for Winning Colors, the winner of the Kentucky Derby.

With the head man delayed in reaching Belmont from California, Lukas’ 30-year-old son, Jeff, conducted Winning Colors’ half-mile workout.

Jeff Lukas has been more than supervising the workout for Winning Colors since the robust 3-year-old filly appeared on the scene at Saratoga last August. The younger Lukas tabbed Winning Colors as a horse he’d like to work with, even before she had run a race, and he has stayed with her ever since, for six wins in seven starts and major victories in the Santa Anita Oaks and the Santa Anita Derby before the Kentucky Derby.

Locally, the head trainer’s son is known as Parenthesis Lukas, because in New York’s programs his father had been listed as trainer, followed by Jeff’s name, set off parenthetically.

Wayne Lukas has not kept Jeff’s involvement with Winning Colors a secret, though. After the Santa Anita Derby, he said: “I give all the credit to Jeff. He drafted her and took her to New York last year and slept with her and nursemaided her.”

Several days before the Kentucky Derby, Wayne Lukas said: “Jeff’s training the filly this week. This will be like a vacation for me. I’m just here to supervise press relations.”

That last remark was in jest, a reference to Lukas’ hot-and-cold relationship with reporters, but the rest of what he said was right on the money.

Jeff Lukas should have been in the spotlight, along with his father and owner Gene Klein, when they were interviewed in the press box after the Derby, but he knew his responsibility was to the filly. Jeff led her back to the barn, just as he had brought her over to the paddock before the race.

Wayne didn’t overlook Jeff in his post-race remarks. “I can’t put into words how much Jeff has done to make this filly,” he said. “I just wish he were up here to share the credit, but he wanted to go back with her to the barn. I knew he would. Early on, Jeff became quite attached to her and it looked like what he was doing was complementing her natural ability. I just stayed in the background.”

Jeffrey Wayne Lukas was born in Antigo, Wis., in 1957, the only child from the first of his father’s three marriages. Jeff could play a little football, and went to the University of Wisconsin River Falls on an athletic scholarship.

During the summers, he hung around his father, who had abandoned a career as a basketball coach--and $6,000-a-year salaries--to become a prominent quarter-horse trainer.

By his junior year, Jeff was getting pushed around on the football field. He hadn’t grown since he was a high school senior, and those he played against were still maturing. He dropped out and went to work for his father, who had recently moved from quarter horses to thoroughbreds in Southern California.

By 1983, Wayne Lukas had accumulated a gaggle of deep-pocketed owners and was on the verge of winning his first of five straight national money titles. The Lukas operation was about to establish a division in New York, and Jeff was sent to oversee the operation, with transcontinental phone calls from Wayne on the West Coast filling in the blanks.

It had to be an exciting time for a young trainer. The New York filly division alone included Life’s Magic, Lucky Lucky Lucky, Miss Huntington and Bara Lass.

Jeff Lukas has been spending about half the year in New York, the other half in California, ever since, with occasional trips to Florida and the Midwest thrown in on behalf of the far-flung barn.

With the Lukas operation having earned more than $50 million in purses over the last five years, even an assistant makes more than most head trainers do. Jeff Lukas has never thought about branching out on his own, eliminating his listing of Parenthesis Lukas.

“This is a dream job,” Jeff said the other day at Belmont. “It is for me as well as all of the other assistants. Where else could you have a chance to work with all these well-bred horses and under these conditions?”

A few years ago, Wayne Lukas bought a 3-bedroom house on Long Island, a 7-minute drive from Belmont. Jeff Lukas lives there when he’s working at Belmont and wherever any of Lukas’ assistants might be based, company cars are provided. This might seem de rigeur, but it isn’t. An assistant trainer for one of this year’s Kentucky Derby starters had to drive his own car to Louisville because the stable wouldn’t allow him a rental for the days leading up to the race.

“I’m very comfortable right where I am,” Jeff Lukas said.

Some of the other horses he has been directly involved in training have been Lady’s Secret, the horse of the year in 1986, and divisional champions Life’s Magic, Family Style and North Sider.

Jeff Lukas can be as difficult an interview as his father can be easy. The work around the barn is his priority. Other owners have noticed. When Peter Brant sacked his trainer, Le Roy Jolley, one of the considerations in shifting his horses to the Lukas organization was the expertise that Jeff would furnish in New York.

The other day here, Wayne had arrived from California, in time to see Winning Colors grazing after her workout, and there was catching up to do between father and son.

Jeff reported that Gulch, a Brant horse, had also worked well that morning.

“Has Peter called?” Wayne asked.

“No,” Jeff said.

“I found out that Daniel Wildenstein (the Paris art dealer and a Lukas client) was the underbidder on the filly (Winning Colors). So we would have got her no matter who bought her.”

Jeff Lukas smiled that same toothy smile that his father has.

“Who do we have to beat in the fourth?” Wayne asked.

Jeff pulled the program out of his pocket and pointed to a maiden 2-year-old sired by Temperence Hill.

“His works have been real good,” Jeff said.

“Temperence Hill’s run fast in the morning, but not that fast in the afternoons,” Wayne said.

Jeff nodded. The Temperence Hill colt ran second, but he did finish a length ahead of the Lukas horse.

Dallas Stewart, a recent addition to Team Lukas’ roster of young assistant trainers, was scurrying around the barn, helping to answer the phone, working with a blacksmith on the shoeing of a horse and keeping watch on some of the 280 employees that the stable uses from coast to coast.

“You could pass for Jeff’s brother,” somebody said to Stewart.

“That’s all right,” Stewart said, not knowing how to handle the comparison. “He’s not a bad guy.”

It might be expected that Winning Colors would be Jeff Lukas’ favorite horse, or possibly even Lady’s Secret.

“I haven’t thought about it,” he said. “But it could also be Life’s Magic, and I’m sure that if you asked a lot of people around the barn, they might tell you that, too. Or it might even be an allowance horse, who tries hard, a horse that gives you a lot of heart even though he might not have that much ability.”

Lukas could make a big shift in favor of Winning Colors if she adds Saturday’s Preakness at Pimlico to her Derby victory.

Jeff remembers the first time he saw her.

“She was big, even as a young horse,” he said. “In any field of horses, she would have stood out. She looked like an obvious route (distance) horse, but it looked like she would have to be given some time.”

The time for Winning Colors’ first race was last August at Saratoga, against other maiden 2-year-old fillies. Frank LaBocetta, another trainer with a horse in the race, saddled his filly and then went out of his way to go over and admire Winning Colors.

“First time I think I ever did that,” LaBocetta said.

Winning Colors won that race by 2 1/2 lengths, then didn’t run again for more than four months.

“We had a bunch of other good fillies, so there was reason to give her more time,” Jeff said. “We came close to running in the Hollywood Starlet, in mid-December, but then just decided to wait.”

The wait has resulted in five wins and a second, all but the Kentucky Derby being races at Santa Anita.

Jeff was confident going to Louisville.

“A lot of people said that she hadn’t beaten much in the Santa Anita Derby,” he said. “But she won against a field loaded with graded stakes winners, and another horse in the race, All Thee Power, went on to win the California Derby.”

Jeff Lukas knew his horse. As he should have, since he has been around Winning Colors more than anybody else.