Lukas’ Non-Claim to Fame

The next time we see trainer Wayne Lukas, it can be assumed he will be wearing a new baseball cap. His old favorite, with the words “Ten Triple Crowns,” will have to be replaced by one that reads “Eleven Triple Crowns,” a change in millinery made even sweeter for Lukas because his latest victory, with 30-1 shot Charismatic in the Kentucky Derby, prevented Bob Baffert from completing a hat trick.

Baffert, Baffert, Baffert.

It seems as if the only trainer in horse racing who has received any attention during the last two years was Baffert, which is understandable to everyone except other trainers.

After all, Baffert won the last two Kentucky Derbies with Silver Charm and Real Quiet and arrived Saturday at Churchill Downs with three chances, including the favored entry of General Challenge and Excellent Meeting and third-choice Prime Timber, to become the first trainer in the 125-year history of the race to win three in a row.

But before there was Baffert, there was Lukas.

Between 1994 and ‘96, he won an amazing six consecutive Triple Crown races. The last time Baffert didn’t win the Derby before Saturday, three years ago, it was because his Cavonnier was reeled in down the stretch and beaten by a nose. The horse was Grindstone. The trainer was Lukas.

That was his third Derby victory. Not many gave him a chance this time to become the third trainer to win four or more.

Lukas, sensitive in the past when he or his horses didn’t receive the respect he believed they deserved, was almost mellow last week.

Win or lose the Derby, he said, he had already had a good year. On Tuesday, he was elected into the Racing Hall of Fame and, on Saturday, he would be able to watch as two of his proteges, former assistants Bobby Barnett and Dallas Stewart, saddled their own Kentucky Derby horses.

Of his own two entries, he was higher on Charismatic, who bloomed only after it was discovered he needed to work long and often to keep his weight down, than Cat Thief, who looked better in the Daily Racing Form based on his past performances. The bettors would make Cat Thief the fifth choice. But Lukas, 63, was philosophical.

“I don’t feel like I have anything to prove,” he said, standing outside his barn last week. “I’ll go over [to the track] pretty quiet. If we win it, it will be a wonderful feeling, and, obviously, if we lose it, I’ll be OK with that too.”

Of course, it’s difficult to be too smug when, less than three months ago, you entered the best 3-year-old in your stable in a claiming race. That’s what Lukas did at Santa Anita in February with Charismatic, who could have been bought by anyone with $62,500.

He didn’t have to twist the arms of Charismatic’s owners, Bob and Beverly Lewis, the San Gabriel Valley beer distributors who have entered four horses in the Derby and won with two.

The Lewises bought the horse as a yearling for $200,000, considerably more than the $85,000 they paid for 1997 winner Silver Charm, and then were staggered as Charismatic became the Refrigerator Perry of race horses.

Asked how he felt about the prospect of losing the horse for about $140,000 less than he paid for him, Lewis said, “At that point and time, I was delighted. We had been paying feed bills for awhile. Once in a while in this industry, you have to cut the bleeding.”

Lukas, on the other hand, didn’t really want to lose the horse.

He entered him in a claiming race because he thought that would be the quickest route to the winner’s circle, where Charismatic had visited only once in his first nine starts. He needed confidence. As it turned out, he did win, but it was by disqualification, and there were no takers.

“Wayne told me, ‘Whew, Bob, we just escaped one,’ ” Lewis said.

Lukas took another chance when he asked Chris Antley to ride the horse. He won the Derby in 1991 on Strike The Gold, but, suffering from burnout and eating almost as much Charismatic, he dropped out of the sport for more than a year before returning for the recently completed Santa Anita meeting.

“He’s hungry and has a passion to get back to the higher echelon of this game,” Lukas said. “He’s a very cool rider. He’s won the Derby. It wasn’t like we were going with a guy that was going to break down in the post parade.”

It all came together for Lukas on Saturday. Not only did Charismatic win, Cat Thief finished third.

“I’d be foolish to stand here and tell you that I thought he was going to win the race,” Lukas said of Charismatic.

“But I said all week that my colleagues and everybody in the race was probably in the gray area a little bit. I don’t think that, probably other than Bob Baffert, did anyone feel really, really strong about getting through maybe 20 other horses and navigating a mile and a quarter with this crowd.”

Oh yeah, Baffert.

He had respectable results with Prime Timber and Excellent Meeting, who finished fourth and fifth. But General Challenge, the Santa Anita Derby winner, was a disappointing 11th.

While waiting to escort his horse to the track about an hour before the race, General Challenge’s owner, John Mabee of San Diego, was standing outside Baffert’s barn when bird droppings fell on his head.

Mabee laughed.

“Arthur Hancock told me the same thing happened to him before his horse, Gato Del Sol, won the Derby in 1982,” he said. “Maybe it’s a good sign.”

Or not.

Sometimes bird droppings on your head are just bird droppings on your head.

Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: randy.harvey@latimes.com.

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Trainers of Thought

Winningest trainers in the Kentucky Derby:

* 6: Ben Jones (1938-52, 11 starters)--1938 Lawrin, 1941 Whirlaway, 1944 Pensive, 1948 Citation, 1949 Ponder, 1952 Hill Gail.

* 4: Dick Thompson (1920-37, 24 starters)--1921 Behave Yourself, 1926 Bubbling Over, 1932 Burgoo King, 1933 Brokers Tip.

* 4: Wayne Lukas (1981-99, 35 starters)--1988 Winning Colors, 1995 Thunder Gulch, 1996 Grindstone, 1999 Charismatic.

* 3: Jim Fitzsimmons (1930-57, 11 starters)--1930 Gallant Fox, 1935 Omaha, 1939 Johnstown.

* 3: Max Hirsh (1915-51, 14 starters)--1936 Bold Venture, 1946 Assault, 1950 Middleground.