Just Steel in final tuneup for Preakness. (Anika Miskar/Past The Wire)
Just Steel, Seize The Grey
David Joseph/Maryland Jockey Club
BALTIMORE, Md. – At 88, Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas’ stable is rolling. Again.
With new clients investing in bloodstock at sales, Lukas has returned to the highest level of racing, a stratum he dominated at for decades. He is making his 32nd appearance in the Preakness Stakes (G1) Saturday with a pair of colts, Just Steel and Seize the Grey. They will be his 47th and 48th starters in the 1 3/16-mile–race.
A lack of depth and quality hit the Lukas stable hard in the second half of the last decade. In 2019, he saddled a total of 15 winners. In 2020, he had 19 wins and $1,006,591 in earnings. So far this year, Lukas has had 16 wins from 113 starters and earnings of $2,649,425. Most of that success came at Oaklawn Park where he finished fifth in the trainer standings.
Lukas brought seven runners to compete in the stakes at Pimlico this weekend and is very enthusiastic about his Preakness horses as he seeks his seventh victory.
There was a significant turnaround in the Lukas stable in 2022 when his earnings climbed dramatically to $4.1 million. He had a strong Saratoga meet that summer and two of his new owners, John Bellinger and Brian Coelho of BC Stables, were active at the Fasig-Tipton sale. They spent $2.2 million, and the next month spent $3,450,000 at Keeneland. Just Steel came out of the Keeneland sale.
Bellinger and Coelho had known Lukas for years and decided to use the octogenarian when they decided to get into the racing business.
“They didn’t want to grow up in the business with somebody that was growing with them,” Lukas said.
With MyRacehorse’s Seize the Grey and Just Steel, co-owned by BC Stables LLC and Henry Schmueckle, Lukas is back on familiar ground at Pimlico. He is competing in the Triple Crown series and is as confident as ever.
“It’s a game of experience,” he said. “You still have to have that experience of looking at these horses and reading them and knowing what to do. I feel like I haven’t lost anything. I might be a little slower on the pony, but I’m still on that horse. I’m still doing the same thing, but I do it better than I used to.”
