Lukas Is Rising to Occasion

At 4:20 a.m. Sunday, about 11 hours after Charismatic won the Preakness, trainer Wayne Lukas arrived at his Pimlico barn.

About the only other trainers stirring in the stakes barn were Bobby Barnett, who won another stake on Saturday’s Preakness card, and Dallas Stewart, whose Kimberlite Pipe ran eighth in the Preakness.

“Notice anything about the other two guys who got here early?” said Lukas, not needing to explain. Barnett and Stewart used to work for Lukas, and they still live by the same alarm clocks.

Elbow grease is what they used to call it. A punishing work ethic, and not a small amount of good fortune, have carried Lukas into the Belmont Stakes on June 5 in New York, where Charismatic has the chance to make him the first trainer to pull off a Triple Crown sweep since Laz Barrera won the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont with Affirmed in 1978. Overall, 11 horses have swept the series.

Joe De Francis, the president of Pimlico, stopped by the barn about 8 a.m. to congratulate Lukas.

“You can’t begrudge Wayne anything he’s achieved,” De Francis said. “Nobody puts in more hours at the barn and works harder than he does.”

Then there’s Lukas’ hands-on approach.

Early last week, already considering his Belmont plans, Lukas hired a van that would transport Charismatic and Cat Thief to Belmont Park on Sunday. On Thursday, Lukas changed his travel schedule, canceling the Belmont van and ordering a plane that will take a shipment of his horses, including Charismatic and Saturday’s other stakes winner, Yes It’s True, to Louisville today. Lukas remembered that his three Belmont winners--Tabasco Cat in 1994, Thunder Gulch in 1995 and Editor’s Note in 1996--all trained for the race at Churchill Downs.

Lukas, 63, will travel with his horses, as he frequently does. There are only three seats on the plane for human passengers.

“I could have flown commercial, and let one of the guys go with the horses,” Lukas said. “That’s the easy way. Have dinner and watch the movie. But I’m sending a couple of guys commercial and I’ll take one of those three seats. The hands-on approach is important.”

In arriving here with his horses from Louisville, Lukas noticed at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport that the unloading ramp was unusual and an adjustment needed to be made.

“I think this is the only place where they have a solid oak ramp, and it has cleats that are two inches high,” he said. “I called for some mats. All a horse has to do is catch a heel on one of those cleats and you wind up tubbing him instead of running him.”

Lukas was voted into the Racing Hall of Fame this year, the announcement coming four days before Charismatic won the Derby. He has won 12 Triple Crown races--four Derbies, five Preaknesses and three Belmonts--and in 1994-96 he won an unprecedented six consecutive Triple Crown races, but there are still some voids.

“I’ve never swept the Triple Crown with the same horse, and I’ve never won the Breeders’ Cup Classic,” Lukas said.

The horse that can give him the Triple Crown was being hosed down in front of the barn. Charismatic is a big colt, about 16 hands (64 inches) at the withers and he weighs 1,200 pounds. Lukas could have lost him when he ran for a $62,500 claiming price at Santa Anita in February, but no claim was put in.

“He’s my worst managing job and my best training job,” said Lukas, a former high school basketball coach. “But I’m not the first ‘coach’ to cut a guy who turned out to be a good one. I’ve got no crystal ball, but we’ll go into the Belmont off his best race. He showed a quickness of acceleration [Saturday] that he hadn’t given us before. There’ll be some new shooters in New York, but we’ve got a horse who’s battled-tested and seasoned, and I like the idea that I’ve won the race three times before. At least that shows I’ve got a feel for getting a horse ready in the Belmont.”

A trainer who reaches his barn early can have short nights, and Lukas and his wife, Laura, ordered cheeseburgers from room service at their Baltimore hotel Saturday night. The sandwiches arrived without cheese.

“Laura wanted to send them back for the cheese,” Lukas said. “I told her we didn’t have time.”

Horse Racing Notes

Cat Thief, a third-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby but a fading seventh in the Preakness, will not run in the Belmont. . . . Trainer Bob Baffert, who dominated the Triple Crown series the last two years, probably won’t run a horse in the Belmont. “I think I’m getting off this bus,” Baffert said. . . . Five of the horses that followed Charismatic across the wire in the Preakness--Menifee, Badge, Stephen Got Even, Adonis and Kimberlite Pipe--could run in the Belmont. . . . Torrid Sand, 11th in the Preakness, will undergo surgery to correct a displaced palate. . . . Among the new faces in the Belmont will be Best Of Luck, who was second in the Wood Memorial and the Withers at Aqueduct. . . . Another possible Belmont runner is Lemon Drop Kid, ninth in the Derby.

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Crowning Achievements

If Wayne Lukas’ Charismatic can win the Belmont Stakes on June 5, he would become the 12th Triple Crown series winner and first since Affirmed in 1978. In all, Lukas’ horses have won 12 Triple Crown races:

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Year Race Winning Horse 1980 Preakness Codex 1985 Preakness Tank’s Prospect 1988 Kentucky Derby Winning Colors 1994 Preakness Tabasco Cat 1994 Belmont Tabasco Cat 1995 Kentucky Derby Thunder Gulch 1995 Preakness Timber Country 1995 Belmont Thunder Gulch 1996 Kentucky Derby Grindstone 1996 Belmont Editor’s Note 1999 Kentucky Derby Charismatic 1999 Preakness Charismatic

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