D. Wayne Lukas

A talented field of 10 juvenile fillies will throw down in Sunday's featured GI Spinaway S. at Saratoga. Kaling (Practical Joke) will exit from the rail following a 'TDN Rising Star' performance on debut for Todd Pletcher at the Spa July 24. Pletcher's former boss D. Wayne Lukas will be very well-represented as well via last out GIII Adirondack S. Aug. 7 heroine Naughty Gal (Into Mischief). The duo share a co-leading six Spinaway victories. "I enjoy it and I pull for him," Lukas said of facing the aforementioned fellow...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY - Here we are on the final weekend of the Saratoga season and--no surprise--D. Wayne Lukas is ready to take swings in both of the historic Grade I races for 2-year-olds. The Hall of Fame trainer, who turned 87 Friday, will saddle Holy Cow Stable's Naughty Gal (Into Mischief) Sunday in the GI Spinaway S. The next afternoon, Lukas will send out BC Stable's Bourbon Bash (City of Light) and Western Ghent (American Pharoah) in the GI Hopeful, the final stake of the 154th season of Saratoga...

Hall of Famer D. Wayne Lukas is the newest addition to the MyRacehorse cast of trainers, as he will condition a yearling colt by Arrogate out of well-bred stakes-placed runner and producer Smart Shopping (Smart Strike) for the micro-share syndication company. The colt was purchased for $300,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale as hip 79. "Adding a world-class name such as D. Wayne Lukas to MyRacehorse is an honor," MyRacehorse CEO Michael Behrens said. "Teaming up to provide our owners with the opportunity to say their horse is trained by...

I guess the whole point is that ours is a world apart, a sanctuary from the cares of the "real" one. But it still feels unnerving, to see a new cycle of the sales calendar open with such blithe indifference to a wider consensus that the global economy is scrabbling along the top of a precipice. Both Saratoga and Deauville benefit from a heady atmosphere that might easily induce a perilous incaution when a yearling stands there shimmering on a sale rostrum. But it was ever thus, and the market...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY - This has been a turn-back-the-clock, very D. Wayne Lukas-like, summer at Saratoga for the Hall of Fame trainer. As he approaches his 87th birthday on Sept. 2, the racing legend has won a graded stake, finished second in two others, and made his presence felt at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale with the purchase of five yearlings for $2.725 million, led by of a son of Medaglia d'Oro for $1.35 million. After skipping the past two Saratoga seasons due to a combination of the Covid-19 pandemic and...

7th-Saratoga, $105,000, Msw, 8-13, 2yo, 6f, 1:11.77, ft, 8 lengths. BOURBON BASH (c, 2, City of Light--Buy Sell Hold {SW & GSP, $125,520}, by Violence) made it a hat trick for jockey Flavien Prat, breaking from the inside gate and wasting no time in flashing his early speed to quickly open up a length on the field in the first furlong. Under a stoic ride a path off the rail, Bourbon Bash put six lengths on a quartet of chasers passing the quarter pole and never gave them a chance...

In this instance, you really can't say that the grass is any greener on the other side of the fence. Take your dystopian pick: the floods of Kentucky, or the desiccation of Europe, where I've just returned from a vacation that seamlessly united the city parks of England and Italy in the same wasteland, with just a few bleached spikes still protruding from the baked, ashen earth. However illusory, then, it's a relief to find enough recognizable vegetation salvaged Stateside at least to host all three of Saturday's Grade I...

By this stage, they've probably had enough of being asked about that $1 mare. But the remarkable thing is that the first Thoroughbred ever acquired by Robert and Stacy Mitchell still cost more (cover fees aside) than all the others that have stocked Briland Farm, on and off the racetrack, since 2001. That was the year, having begun an inadvertent breeding career with a mare discarded by a friend of a friend, they decided to see what they could do with one that cost as much as $36,000. Her name...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY - Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas thought Naughty Gal (Into Mischief) was so good in the GIII Adirondack S. Sunday that her next start ought to be in the GI Spinaway S. Summer Promise (Uncle Mo), runner-up in the GIII Schuylerville S. on opening day was being pointed to the $300,000 seven-furlong Spinaway Sept. 4, but Lukas said Wednesday that he was reconsidering that approach. "I've kind of changed gears after I watched Naughty Gal run the other day and win," he said. "I might...

Ageless Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, fresh off a victory in Sunday's GII Adirondack S., made the first big splash during Tuesday's second session of the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale, going to $1.35 million to acquire a Medaglia d'Oro colt on behalf of John Bellinger. Consigned by Four Star Sales as hip 114, the dark bay is out of GSW Walk Close (Tapit), making him a full to 2019 GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile runner-up Anneau d'Oro. He was bred as an apparent foal share by Lochlow Farm and Godolphin.

Holy Cow Stable's Naughty Gal (Into Mischief) certainly lived up to her name Sunday at Saratoga, as she took the GII Adirondack S. despite bearing out badly in the stretch. Bidding to increase legendary trainer D. Wayne Lukas's record wins in this race to seven, the 7-5 favorite broke well and tugged Luis Saez up to take a narrow lead through an opening quarter in :22.46. She started trying to get out midway along the bend, but remained several lengths clear as she posted a :46.15 half. Out in the...

A half-dozen 3-year-old fillies, topped by the one-two finishers in the July 9 GI Belmont Oaks Invitational S., will do battle in Sunday's GIII Saratoga Oaks Invitational S., one of three graded stakes taking place on the first Sunday in August. Highly-regarded McKulick (GB) (Frankel {GB}), named after trainer Chad Brown's first employee when he struck out on his own, was an impressive debut winner last summer at the Spa, but went winless in her next three starts while placing in the GII Miss Grillo S., GII Edgewood S. and...