D. Wayne Lukas

Cindy Hutter, who continues her inspiring recovery from a severe brain injury sustained in a training accident in July 2022, has been named the 2023 winner of the Bill Mooney Award for displaying courage in the face of tremendous adversity by the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters. Hutter started riding at a young age before going to work for trainer Bruce Miller after she turned 16. Hutter later worked for D. Wayne Lukas, galloping such stars as Winning Colors, Thunder Gulch, Open Mind and Flanders, and later for Todd Pletcher,...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY -- This is not a new story. The calendar flips to September, the Saratoga season is in its final few days and Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas is having another birthday. Lukas turns 88 Saturday and the beat goes on. He will get up at 3 a.m. and within an hour will arrive at his barn located a couple of hundred yards from the Oklahoma training track. As usual, he will be in the saddle on his pony accompanying his horses as they go out...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY -- Never shy about being a promoter, Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas did not have to use his best pitch as he looked ahead to the GI Personal Ensign S. on Aug. 25 where he will saddle Secret Oath (Arrogate). Always an important race that draws the top older dirt fillies and mares, the $500,000 Personal Ensign will once again have a strong lineup on Friday. Champion Nest (Curlin) and Clairiere (Curlin), who ran 1-2 in the GII Shuvee S. on July 23 are the...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - In an atypical move, Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas said that GIII Saratoga Special S. runner-up Market Street (Street Sense) will likely make his next start on grass in the Aug. 31 GIII With Anticipation S. Lukas, 87, built his exceptional career with dirt horses and most years saddles far fewer horses on the grass. So far in 2023, just six of his 193 starters (3%) have run on turf. Since the beginning of 2019, 11.9% of his starters have been on turf. His...

Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher, along with his wife Tracy, received the Marylou Whitney Award from the New York Race Track Chaplaincy for their continuing devotion and support of the backstretch community at the organization's 16th annual fundraising brunch at the Saratoga National Golf Club, the organization said in a release Wednesday. "I can't say enough about what the New York Race Track Chaplaincy organization does for the backstretch community," Pletcher said. "It provides so much more than spiritual help. I look at it like the mayor's office where...

by Jessica Martini and Christina Bossinakis SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY - With bids ricocheting from all directions both inside and outside the Humphrey S. Finney Pavilion, the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale of Selected Yearlings opened with a strong session topped by a pair of million-dollar babies Monday night in upstate New York. "I thought it was a tremendous start to the 2023 Saratoga Yearling Sale," Fasig-Tipton President Boyd Browning, Jr. said at the close of business Monday. "The numbers are essentially on par with last year's opening session, which was a remarkable,...

The student or the teacher? It was going to come down to one or the other as the second race at Saratoga Saturday, a six-furlong maiden special weight, developed into a stretch battle between the Wayne Lukas-trained Just Steel (Justify) and the Todd Pletcher-trained Be You (Curlin). At the wire, it was Just Steel who had his nose in front, showing once again that the 87-year-old Hall of Famer still knows how to get it done. "You can't let the kids beat you," Lukas said. "You've got to get them...

by Bill Finley & Patrycja Szpyra On paper, Saturday's seventh race at Saratoga looked wide open and loaded with talent. All the major players had horses in the race, Wayne Lukas, Chad Brown, Steve Asmussen, Brad Cox , Bill Mott and Todd Pletcher, who had two starters in the six furlong maiden special weight event. The race figured to be fought all the way to the wire. Instead it was the Asmussen horse, Valentine Candy (Justify), who ran them off their feet right out of the gate. Sent off at...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Though Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas rarely passes on big stakes opportunities, he is skipping the GII Shuvee S. Sunday with Secret Oath (Arrogate). After she turned in an uncharacteristic dull performance in the June 10 GI Ogden Phipps S., Lukas and the 4-year-old filly's breeder-owners Robert and Stacy Mitchell are using a little-bit-less-is-more approach at Saratoga Race Course. "She's really, really doing well," Lukas said Wednesday morning, "but we have made a decision to run here only once. We're trying to space her...

Clarence and Dorothy Scharbauer built Valor Farm outside of Dallas 30 years ago after Dorothy and their daughter Pam campaigned Hall of Famer Alysheba in the late 1980s. Their son Doug continues the blue-and-white silk tradition as his unbeaten homebred Closing Act (Munnings) takes on 10 other 2-year-old fillies in Thursday's GIII Schuylerville S. on opening day at Saratoga. The Steve Asmussen trainee, listed at 10-1 on the morning line, is coming off her first stakes win in the Astoria S. June 11 at Belmont Park after breaking her maiden...

2nd-ELP, $120K, Msw, 2yo, 5 1/2f, 1:14 p.m. Two high-priced maidens will kick off their careers at Ellis Park Thursday. BC Stables paid $1.35 million for DAILY GRIND (Medaglia d'Oro) at last year's Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Yearling sale. Trained by D. Wayne Lukas, the bay colt is out of SW Walk Close (Tapit), who also produced his full-brother Anneau d'Or, second-place finisher in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile. Lambo (Uncle Mo), trained by Steve Asmussen, brought $950,000 from the Heiligbrodts and Jackpot Farm at OBS March after posting a :10 flat...

2nd-ELP, $120K, MSW, 2yo, 5 1/2f, 2:20p.m. BC Stables's Cowboy Code (Into Mischief) gets a start for Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas. Bred by Aaron and Marie Jones, the grey was a $1-million yearling purchase out of the Taylor Made Sales consignment at Keeneland last September. Out of Not In Jest (Unbridled's Song), the filly is a granddaughter of MGISW Stop Traffic (Cure the Blues). OXO Equine's Balta (Munnings) debuts for trainer Paulo Lobo. Working sharply at The Thoroughbred Center, the half to SW Opus Forty Two is...