KENTUCKY DERBY : In a Sign of the Times, Lukas Fires Single Shot

Wayne Lukas’ style has been to attack the Kentucky Derby with both barrels, or more. Since 1981, when Lukas first brought a horse to the Derby, he has saddled a three-horse entry at Churchill Downs three times. Three times he has run a two-horse entry, including 1984, when he became the only trainer to run two fillies in the same Derby.

This year, Lukas’ stable, which has come upon hard times, might have had another two-horse Derby entry. But when the 119th Derby is run Saturday, his only representative will be Union City.

Personal Hope, who beat Union City by three-quarters of a length in the Santa Anita Derby, will probably be the second betting choice, after Prairie Bayou, but he will be saddled by Mark Hennig, a former Lukas assistant, after Lukas picked out the colt at a yearling auction and trained him through his first race last year.

“If I had the other horse (Personal Hope), I’d have some 1-2 punch,” Lukas said wistfully at his Churchill Downs barn this week.

The switch by Personal Hope’s owners, Lee and Debi Lewis, from Lukas, 57, to Hennig, 28, has been an uncomfortable transition for all concerned. Lukas, the leading trainer for a record 10 consecutive years on the national purse list, reacted angrily when he lost Personal Hope, but he has publicly taken the high road in discussing the change. The colt’s owners have tried to defuse the situation, with Lee Lewis doing some semantic juggling: “We really didn’t take the horse away from Wayne; we just gave the horse to Mark.”

Hennig, the man in the middle, has gone about the business of getting Personal Hope ready for the Derby, not snapping at any gossipy bait that has been thrown his way.

A trainer of no small ego, Lukas’ pride surely suffered when Personal Hope, a promising 2-year-old, was moved to a former pupil’s barn. Lukas said he has been training for the Lewis family for about 25 years, dating to Lukas’ quarter horse days. He remembers Lee Lewis, who is 41 now, bumming around with Lukas’ son, Jeff, when they were running quarter horses at Ruidoso Downs, N.M.

Jeff Lukas is now his father’s No. 1 assistant.

Wayne Lukas might have been the head trainer of Lee and Debi Lewis’ horses, but for a five-year stretch that ended last July, Hennig was the Lukas stablehand that the Lewises got close to.

“They skied together. They went on vacation together,” Lukas said. “It was kind of logical that Lee might have given Mark this horse. I can see how it happened.”

It would be human nature for Lukas to have extra motivation for beating Personal Hope with Union City in the Derby, but if that is the case, he’s not letting on. “If I don’t win, I hope Personal Hope wins,” Lukas said. “Number one, I picked him out at the sale (for $75,000). Number two, there’s no one who’s a bigger booster of Mark Hennig than I am.”

To show there are no hard feelings, Lukas loaned Hennig his lead pony for one of Personal Hope’s morning gallops.

Despite a year in which his horses earned $9.8 million, Lukas did not win a major race during 1992. Two other top assistants besides Hennig left him.

There have been persistent rumors, denied by Lukas at every turn, that his stable’s financial underpinnings are precarious. What is known is that Lukas does not have the late Gene Klein to pump millions of dollars into the operation anymore. Calumet Farm, another Lukas client, went bankrupt, leaving the trainer with more than $2 million in unsecured debts. Even the Oaktown Stable, bankrolled by the rapper Hammer and his family, has gone quiet after giving Lukas a short-term free-spending spree that he used to thrive on when several well-heeled owners always seemed to be parked outside his stable door.

Lukas, who won the 1988 Derby with Klein’s filly, Winning Colors, could use another victory at Churchill Downs--for his morale, his checkbook and his reputation. As usual, he says he has the horse. “Union City has put on about 75 pounds since the Santa Anita Derby,” he said. “He’s had some monster workouts since he came to Kentucky. I feel as positive about his chances as I do about Winning Colors and Badger Land, who were my best previous chances to win the race.”

Badger Land was slammed around leaving the gate in the 1986 Derby, then got a panicky ride from Jorge Velasquez that led to additional trouble. They finished fifth, one of 21 Lukas starters who have failed to win the Derby.

Union City is a son of Private Account and Hopespringsforever, a Mr. Prospector mare. Bred by William T. Young, Lukas’ blue-chip client, Union City would have sold as a yearling for $230,000, but a throat problem was discovered by the buyer in a post-sale examination and Young took the colt back.

Despite having earned almost $200,000, Union City has won only two of nine starts and is winless in his only two stakes tries, finishing second in the San Rafael and the Santa Anita Derby.

After being ridden by Chris McCarron in his last three races--the two stakes seconds and an allowance victory--Union City will be ridden Saturday by Pat Valenzuela, who has never been astride the horse.

Valenzuela won the Derby in 1989 with Sunday Silence. He also has won six Breeders’ Cup races in the last nine years. At 17 in 1980, he became the youngest winning rider in the history of the Santa Anita Derby. The victory aboard Codex also gave Lukas one of his biggest early wins after leaving the quarter horse ranks.

“Pat riding Union City is a real plus,” Lukas said. “He’s a money rider if there ever was one. Every time you turn around, he’s winning a big race with a horse that doesn’t figure--Fraise, in last year’s Breeders’ Cup (Turf); Sir Beaufort, in this year’s Santa Anita Handicap. Giving him a horse in a big race is like giving the ball to Magic Johnson with the game on the line.”

Valenzuela’s big-race talents notwithstanding, the Derby is seldom won by a horse who comes into the race with a jockey change. Since 1955, only two Derby winners have been ridden by jockeys who did not ride them in the previous race--Iron Liege, who went from Dave Erb to Bill Hartack in 1957; and Pleasant Colony, who went from Jeff Fell to Jorge Velasquez in 1981.

“There’s no set way to win the Derby,” Lukas said. “I’ve been at it for 13 years and tried all the different ways. We’ve brought horses here the Florida route, the New York route, the California route and from Arkansas. We’ve even hid out before running some of them. And I’ve burned incense and talked to psychics, too.”