D Wayne Lukas - Doing It His Way: Passion & Purpose Keep D. Wayne Lukas Coming Back for More

In his signature white Stetson hat and sunglasses, the white-haired gentleman made his way from his grandstand perch through an undulating crowd toward the infield winner’s circle. The veteran horseman moved purposefully through the fray, his cane his only concession to his age. His peers, many of them decades younger, clasped his hand in congratulations as the masses parted for this icon. Under a gray sky, beside a glossy gray horse draped in yellow and black, D. Wayne Lukas reaped the rewards of his passion and perseverance as he collected another record: at 88 years old, the oldest trainer to win a Triple Crown classic. 

As an elder statesman of the sport, Lukas is a man of contrasts. He grew up on a rural Wisconsin farm cultivating an innate love of horses and then pursued that passion while he developed his leadership skills working as a high school teacher and basketball coach. That legacy carried over to training Quarter Horses and then Thoroughbreds, his nickname ‘the Coach’ carried over from the court to the racetrack. As the ultimate visionary in racing, he built a career innovating the sport while staying committed to simplicity, even eschewing the now-ubiquitous smartphone for its understated cousin, the flip phone, and continuing to supervise both the horses and the people in his charge daily. Successes from the grind of earlier decades have afforded him opportunities that few get: the chance to continue doing what he loves on his terms and his timeline, simultaneously unhurried and ambitious. 

At an age when most might have already called it a day, the Wisconsin native continues to find joy in rising before the sun, mounting his pony, and overseeing the collection of current and future stars in his barn, including Preakness winner Seize the Grey. In his decades on the racetrack, Lukas has filled a multitude of roles – from trainer of equine athletes to teacher of generations to ambassador for the sport he loves – and he has done it all his way. 

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To say that Lukas has won only two Triple Crown classics plus a Kentucky Oaks since 2013 is a statement about the impact that he has had on the sport nearly fifty years after switching from Quarter Horses to Thoroughbreds full time. His resume is familiar to the generations that watched him at the track or on television during his most dominant years in the 1980s and 1990s, a tally of achievements that make his enduring drive all the more extraordinary. 

Since 1978, D. Wayne Lukas has won the Kentucky Derby four times, first with Winning Colors, the third and most recent filly to win the Run for the Roses, in 1988; the Preakness Stakes seven times, from Codex’s victory over Genuine Risk in 1980 to Seize the Grey’s gate-to-wire win in 2024; and the Belmont Stakes four times, including dual classic winner Thunder Gulch in 1995. The trainer was on the cusp of the Triple Crown in 1999, the same year he was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, after Bob and Beverly Lewis’s Charismatic won the Derby and the Preakness and then was on the lead in the Belmont stretch before an injury ended both that bid and the horse’s career. 

In addition to his success in the three-year-old classics, Lukas has trained five Hall of Famers (Lady’s Secret, Winning Colors, Azeri, Serena’s Song, and Open Mind); had former assistant Todd Pletcher join him in the Hall of Fame in 2021; and then was inducted into the Quarter-Horse Hall of Fame in 2007. He claims a record 20 Breeders’ Cup victories, four Eclipse Awards for leading trainer, and nearly fifty Quarter Horse and Thoroughbred champions, numerous graded stakes winners, and a multitude of fans from the kids he pulls into the winner’s circle to names like MyRacehorse’s founder and CEO Michael Behrens and journalist Christina Bossinakis, co-author of Lukas’s 2019 book Sermon on the Mount

His latest Preakness win with Seize the Grey is his third graded stakes win of 2024 and his second with the son of Arrogate, who also took the Grade 2 Pat Day Mile on the Kentucky Derby undercard. Lukas also enjoyed success with Secret Oath, a daughter of the late Juddmonte sire with whom the trainer got his fifth Kentucky Oaks in 2022. “I've had such good luck with the Arrogates,” the trainer reflected. “Boy, that's tragic that we lost him because he was destined to really be a good one.”

Seize the Grey is part of Arrogate’s last crop of foals, bred by the late Audrey “Tolie” Otto’s Jamm Ltd., and purchased by MyRacehorse for $300,000 at the 2022 Saratoga Yearling Sale. When it came time to choose a trainer, Michael Behrens, founder and CEO of the microshare syndicate, thought the colt would be a great fit for Lukas’s program. 

“I saw his success with Secret Oath, and that was an Arrogate, and that got him back in my purview and watching and just being a little bit more cognizant of what he was doing down in Oaklawn. Watching the success that he was having at a later stage in his career, I was impressed,” Behrens shared. “This horse was built like a horse that we thought would do well in his program. We know that Wayne is not afraid to run a horse, and that's one thing that we love to do is race. With his strength and physical attributes, he just felt like a horse that we thought would thrive in that type of environment.”

Additionally, Behrens knew that bringing Lukas on was going to create a special connection for each person that paid $127 to buy a share of Seize the Grey. Even before the colt made his first start, having the Hall of Fame trainer attached was an irresistible opportunity for potential owners. “To say, I own a horse with D. Wayne Lukas, [became] the reason they bought the horse,” Behrens shared. “It didn't matter what the horse looked like, the walk, the pedigree. So many people come to me and say, ‘I bought in because of one reason: I just wanted to own a horse with the Coach.’”

Lukas understands the significance of his part in the Preakness win for those owners. After his first reaction to the colt’s victory – “Well, I did it again” – the trainer knew that “I had just made 2,570 people happy. I didn't realize how happy, but they were really happy.” The winner’s circle was filled with just a fraction of the men and women who had treasured the possibility of winning with D. Wayne Lukas enough to invest their money with no promise of a return. When it comes to the Hall of Fame trainer, though, nothing is outside the realm of possibility. 

Seize the Grey is the first horse MyRacehorse has sent to Lukas; Behrens and company has since added two more to his barn. The Hall of Famer has become “an ambassador of MyRacehorse, which has been great. He'll say things like, ‘I got to go check with the 2500 owners first before we make a decision,’” Behrens laughed. “Everybody loves it. It's great for us. It really reinforces all the time that this horse is fundamentally owned by the people. It's given our brand just a lot more awareness. It's given it more clarity, which has been helpful.”

Seize the Grey gave Lukas his 15th Triple Crown classic victory. That number is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what the Wisconsin native has achieved since he started training Quarter Horses full-time in 1968 and then switched to Thoroughbreds a decade later. 

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Lukas’s resume puts him on par with legends like “Sunny Jim” Fitzsimmons and Ben Jones, both of whom were private trainers for the sport’s largest owners in a time when a singular home base was the norm. In his time as part of a sport deeply rooted in tradition, Lukas turned that on its head and molded racing’s previous business model into one all his own. From the paddock on race day to the backside every day, he has left no aspect of his operation untouched by his vision and influenced the practices of many other trainers in the process. 

“When I first started with the Thoroughbreds, I came to the paddock a couple of times, and I didn't have the right blinkers. I did have some of the things I wanted, the pommel pad and so forth. So, I thought, that's a simple fix,” Lukas remembered. “We got these bags made, big shopping bags, and we put our stuff in there. Do you know that within, I'm going to say two weeks, almost every trainer on the backside had their shopping bags made up?” 

In the early days at Santa Anita, “we'd bed deep on straw. Everybody then was pulling a drag sack, where they threw everything on it and dragged it to the bin. And so, I thought this is not the way to go,” the trainer shared. “I went right down to the maintenance guy, and I said, ‘I want you to make this big wide wheelbarrow. It just barely fits through the doors of the stall [and] go at least three quarters in. Just put a nice big tire on it and everything.’ He made, I think, four or something like that. Guess what? Soon everybody else had one, too. Two months later, Western Saddlery mass-produced them and sold them all over the country.”

His innovations went beyond his California base and spread coast to coast. Building on Jack Van Berg’s multiple divisions, Lukas had four barns coast-to-coast, each staffed by a star-studded list of assistants, and supported multiple racetracks rather than focusing on one or two. “He didn't have 200 horses at one location. We ran at Monmouth, we ran at Belmont, and we ran in Kentucky” former assistant trainer Kiaran McLaughlin recalled. “Today, Todd and Chad would have over 100 horses at Saratoga trying to be the leading trainer, but Wayne never really did that. He kept the horses at different locations and helped each racetrack that we were stabled at.”

The former educator and basketball coach translated his experience managing players and students into mentoring his employees, especially his legion of assistant trainers, as he taught them to do it his way. “As a head coach, you have to delegate responsibility in some of the teaching or training. And that came out real strong with me,” Lukas shared. “Every one of those four divisions that we had were not any different. You could go to any one of them, and you would absolutely know exactly what the policy was.” 

That background extended to the horses in his barns, as the trainer placed his charges where they would perform best, giving each one a shot in the right conditions rather than focusing on a chosen few as other trainers would do. “When we first started out, I said, ‘You know what you need to do here is we need to grade these horses. And then after we grade them, we need to decide where they can compete effectively,” Lukas explained. “Can these four horses or five horses or six horses, can they compete at Turfway? Or are they a better set of horses that we can take maybe to Monmouth.’ And we started grading those. We started grading three levels. Pretty soon we had four because we got so many horses.”

In the late 90s and early 2000s, as clients like William T. Young’s Overbrook Farm and Gene Klein passed away and other owners got out of racing, Lukas had progressively fewer horses to work with. That change meant the Wisconsin native had to adapt. His stable gradually transitioned from four barns to one. The same practices are there, but on a different scale. Lukas maintains that “the only thing I've changed, I think, is that I read into the horse a little bit better.” He still marks his training chart after each day’s session. He talks with assistant trainer Sebastian Nicolls, listens to feedback from his employees, “and then I sleep on it. The next morning, I walk in there and maybe say, ‘You know what? That filly, she's only had seven days’ rest, and she's going to run back in three weeks. I think I'll give her two more days.’” 

At the core of his ability to adapt are the skills that brought him the most success: his innate relationship with the horse. “I think, fundamentally, he was practically born on a horse. He certainly grew up on horses. He wasn't exposed to the greatest of horses when he was a very, very young man. He really learned all the basics of horsemanship from the ground level,” co-author and friend Christina Bossinakis observed. “I think he also been able to create a system and a discipline within his operation that has been proven to be successful.”

In addition to the day-to-day work with his current charges, Lukas finds the possibility of what’s next inherent in yearling sales as thrilling as a Grade 1 win. “At this period of my life, I probably should have somebody look at them and make a short list and give me the short list. But I don't do that. I get right in there and go barn to barn. I'll have a score on each,” the horseman shared. “I look at everyone there and enjoy the whole process.”

His ability to pick out future athletes is one part of the process that has propelled Lukas from high school basketball coach to horse trainer. That fresh blood motivates him to look forward to the next race, the next season, giving the restlessness that comes from his indomitable drive an outlet. Yet if observers imagined that he has another Kentucky Derby win or another Breeders’ Cup victory motivating him, Lukas makes it clear that is not what drives him. Rather than the big picture, this horseman’s focus is simpler: “My goals are daily. My goals, they fall in there. Here's the way I live my life: Every morning when you wake up, you or me, I want you to try this. You have a few seconds of an attitude adjustment. Now, I wake up and I say, ‘look, I'm tired. I know I'm tired.’ But I wake up and I say to myself, ‘I've been blessed by God to have a talent that is unique. I'm not going to waste it today. I'm going to use this talent today to get better than I was yesterday.’ And with that, will come a Derby or a Preakness.” 

“I wake up with the idea that I need to give my clients a fair chance to succeed. And it's not easy with every horse, but I think that it's very important that I go to work trying to give them a chance to succeed,” the Hall of Famer shared. “If any client moves a horse tomorrow, I wouldn't worry because I feel comfortable that I at least gave it every chance to succeed.”

Never one to rest on his laurels, Lukas strives to get the best out of his horses, his employees, and, most of all, himself each day. His passion for what he has done since his youth and the success he has cultivated from his skill set both propel him forward and free him to enjoy the journey there. 

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Seize the Grey’s Grade 1 wins are a reminder not only of what the man conditioning him has accomplished, but also the horsemanship that brought him multiple graded stakes wins nearly every season for the last 46 years. “We're such a result-oriented sport, like most things are,” MyRacehorse’s Behrens observed. “The reality is that it's these big wins that bring everything back to everybody's memory. It’s nice for him to have the acknowledgement again of his success and his expertise.” 

The Preakness shows who the Hall of Famer truly is as his barn and his business has changed. How does he still do it at age 88? “I mean, it's simple. He has a recipe. He has optimism, and he has the work ethic,” fellow trainer Ron Moquett, who has known Lukas since the 1990s, said. “If you believe you can do something, and you're willing to work it doing something, then you can do it. And he's proven it over and over. Age doesn't matter. He believes he can do it. He's willing to put forth the effort to do it, and he shows everybody he still can do it.” 

“He's just always been a very driven human being. Very driven. He likes perfection. He likes success. He likes accomplishment. He likes to get things done,” Bossinakis shared. “When we were working on the book, he would call me early, like super early in the morning. And then maybe I might not answer, and then I'd call him back at 8:00. And he would say to me, ‘What? Why? You're still sleeping? You've missed half the day!’”

Even with fewer horses, both Secret Oath and Seize the Grey show that this coach still knows how to find the best in his charges. As McLaughlin observed, “a good coach needs good players, and he's capable with good stock. And he used to buy the best of horses, and that has slowed down some, obviously, because he doesn't have that many owners to buy for. He went from buying maybe 50 horses to 8 or 10. So that's all just different. But he's still a very capable trainer and a great horseman, and as long as his eyesight is good, he can train.”

The only change evident in Lukas is his age. Everything else about the 88-year-old edition mirrors his earlier iterations, from his rise and shine time to his attitude about his work in his latest decade. He may have one barn and 40 horses rather than four with 150 head, but he remains the same trainer, supervising his equine athletes while advising his staff and mentoring his contemporaries. “With winning comes a certain amount of passion to keep you going,” the trainer reflected. “But also, when you win and you win consistently, those guys that are coming behind mind you, the younger ones, they're watching.” 

That competitive drive makes this Hall of Famer ageless and fuels him to continue moving forward, as wife Laurie noted. “It's just the passion for it. I mean, I have a lot of passion for the horse business and for horses, but I can't match [him]. I don't think anybody can match his passion. I've never seen anything like it.”

“He's very proactive. I think that's part of just his makeup. But I also think it's what keeps him driven to keep accomplishing and doing more,” Bossinakis echoed. 

That passion not only drives Lukas to the barn every morning, his 35-minute commute a chance to reflect on what he can do with his day, but it also moves him to share a lifetime’s experience working with equine athletes with his younger contemporaries. 

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Lukas’s childhood in Wisconsin provided the foundation for two essential aspects of the man: his love for horses and his drive to teach and to develop. First, he spent nearly a decade as a high school teacher and basketball coach, using his summers to train Quarter Horses on the side. His eventual shift to training full-time did not diminish his joy in coaching as he used those skills with his employees as he had done with his students. Early on, when he was building his stable and making a name for himself, he was focusing his mentorship on those working under him, trainers like Kiaran McLaughlin and Dallas Stewart.

“He was a fabulous coach and teacher. Not that many of us spent every day with him, but we spoke to him, and we knew what he wanted every day, and we acted as though he was there with us in our daily work,” McLaughlin remembered. “He was a great example of being at the barn at 4:45 in the morning every day and calling back in the different operations or his assistants. In the morning, he would talk to everybody. He was a very organized person, and he was great to learn from and work with.”

Stewart spent a dozen years working for Lukas during the 1980s and 1990s, when the trainer seemed to be everywhere, winning everything. “It was a different level. People had a lot of nice horses, and we learned how to handle the intensity,” the Louisiana native remembered. “You always followed his lead, but he was there every day. I mean, I wouldn't want it done in any other way. I feel fortunate that I worked for him.”

When Moquett first met Lukas at Del Mar, he noted that the famed trainer was “very sharp, very intense, and I thought he held himself like a businessman and horseman. The reputation, the aura was huge, right? And it was all I could do to muster up the courage to ask if he had any horses for sale. But I figured out after about five seconds of talking to him that he's very much on principle, and based on the way I was raised, I related to that very quickly. We made fast acquaintances, and as intimidated as I was to go see the man, it was that quick that I was just enthralled with just listening to him.” 

While he works with his own horses on the backside at Churchill Downs or Oaklawn Park, the lifelong horseman does not miss a chance to share his experience with those around him. Whether he is watching a gatework or sharing his perspective on a common experience, Lukas is there ready to chime in with advice. “The other day, we were at the gate, and they were trying to load this one horse, and he kept turning his side into the gate. I said, ‘If you were just turning the other way, walk up there and turn him the opposite way, he's going to walk right in,’” Lukas remembered. “Everybody looked at the horse, and said, ‘What do we got to lose?’ Walked right up, turned him the other way, and he walked right in.”

Lukas’s counsel extends beyond working with equine athletes; his reputation as a sharp-dressed professional in high-quality suits demonstrated his understanding of perception and how that can help your business as a trainer. He shares the benefits of that attention to personal details where he can. “He told me that the only thing that separated me from everybody else that's doing this job is the fact that nobody else has the opportunity to wake up and decide what I wear. And I'm there to represent the horse, the owner, and my employees. So, if I'm representing them, then I can't show I'd go up dressed like a mucksack,” Moquett shared. “That lit a fire into me. How can I expect anybody to respect me with their investment in a horse? And how can I expect the people in my barn to respect me if I'm dressed like a groom?”

With all that he has achieved in his career, why then does the lifelong horseman feel this pull to mentor? “You walk around the backside and people say, ‘Horsemanship is gone. It's lost.’ A lot of it is that horsemen are not there and being developed and so forth,” he reflected. “There's a lot of truth to that because the young people that come to the backside to train, you know where they come from? McDonald’s or someplace. They wake up and say, ‘I'd like to be a horse trainer.’ They say, ‘I'll walk hots.’ And then they walk hots. The next thing you know, they're grooming. And then they're an assistant. Next thing you know, they got a trainer's license.” 

“I feel obligated to share, and I can't help myself,” the horseman shared.

“That's just the way he is, and he is one of the best of all times at doing what he's doing,” McLaughlin said. “If anybody ask a question, he's happy to answer it. He's mentored many of us on and off the racetrack. He was very influential to all of us.” 

The trainer’s habit of pulling young people into winner’s circle photos is another way of imparting his enthusiasm for the sport to a new generation and creating new fans in the process. He keeps a folder of letters from those who reach out to him, some of whom report keeping that photo in their office or parlaying that experience into further investment in racing. 

“He is very good with his fans in terms of keeping drawing people in. And I say to this day that the reason I'm in racing today is because of him. And that's true. And not only from that first experience of having met him, but also even later on in the later years,” said Bossinakis. “He started off as my idol, and then became more like a mentor.” 

“I've picked up a lot of things that he is really well known for and incorporated them into my own life. He always speaks in terms of ‘we.’ He doesn't say I; he says ‘we,’” his co-author shared. “Very much team oriented. The people around him, the importance of that, I've picked that up.”

As Moquett observed about his friend and peer, “as good as a horse trainer as Wayne Lukas is, and he's one of the best that's ever done it, he's even more going to be known for a motivator.” 

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When Oxbow went gate-to-wire in the 2013 Preakness, a performance echoed in Seize the Grey’s in 2024, Lukas had not won a classic since Commendable’s Belmont Stakes in 2000. The trainer had not stopped the same grind that had earned him a spot in the Hall of Fame but faced a transition: as the owners he had his biggest successes with passed away or left racing, the horseman had to compete with rising stars like Bob Baffert and Todd Pletcher among others for new clients. That meant fewer horses and fewer opportunities to use the skills he had built over a lifetime. 

He could have stepped away then to parlay his boundless drive into other efforts. “In the last 10 years, I think people feel that maybe I would be thinking that way. And I've had opportunities to take, I'm going to say, an administrative situation, managing something,” Lukas shared. Instead, the Wisconsin native prefers to ply his trade, professing that “I get too much joy and satisfaction out of dealing one-on-one with those good horses. And I don't think I would ever go that way. Selfishly, I don't have any other interests.”

With his 89th birthday coming in early September, any talk about this Hall of Famer hanging it up is quickly quieted. Lukas is not about looking back and exudes optimism about the future in each conversation. “Like he says, I'm not really working on my resume anymore,” wife Laurie Lukas observed. “He's just going on pure love of the horse and the sport.” 

“At 89 years old, I want to keep them all in front of me so I can be hands-on, as they say, train each horse individually and be responsible for each choice. Now, I have an outstanding system that really makes it easy,” he shared. “Obviously, with forty head, I've got less clients, too. But I've got a couple of real strong, powerful clients in John Bellinger and Brian Coehlo of BC Stables.” 

Lukas and assistant trainer Sebastian Nicholl split the year between Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas and Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky, both deliberate choices for the trainer who formerly had stables from coast to coast. “Through the '80s and '90s, we were Californians, with Hollywood Park and everything. But during that era, Marge Everett told me that California was going to have trouble holding on to the industry. I thought, ‘Well, if it all goes to hell in a handbag, where will it be the last one to go?’” the trainer recalled. “It's going to be Louisville and Lexington. They'll fight and claw to keep it going. So, I picked up and moved back here.”

Now at home in Arkansas and Kentucky and soon Saratoga, where stars like Winning Colors were launched, D. Wayne Lukas has shown once again his determination to do things his way. His life away from the barn is populated with his family, including wife Laurie, grandson Brady and granddaughter Kelly and their spouses, and his two great-grandchildren. “He loves his family. He's very committed to his grandkids and their spouses, and now his great grandchildren. It is hard, as he talks about it, it's hard to balance that. But I think as he's gotten older, and maybe since I've come in the picture, he also really embraces my family,” Laurie shared. “I just think that's a side the public won't see of him, his sensitivity and the importance of helping people and helping.”

At the barn is Seize the Grey and a few two-year-olds that remind the trainer why he rises before the sun and makes that drive to the backside. As often as his age comes up, the Hall of Fame trainer shows that he is steadfastly himself. 

“He hasn't changed that much over the years. Obviously, he went from managing over 100 horses down to 30 or 40, but he still has a great eye for a horse,” McLaughlin observed. “That was something that was just a given talent to him. He's great at purchasing yearlings and looking at horses, and he still has it in buying horses, and he still gets up at 3:30 or 4:00 in the morning, and he works every day, gets on his pony, and so he loves what he's doing.”

“I think the core of him is the same. At the core, that intensity, that drive to win, that positivity, he’s always had that. Wayne is not a looking behind guy. He's very forward-thinking,” Bossinakis shared. “I will say the biggest change that I've seen in him personally, he's become – I don't even like me saying this – a little bit softer around the edges, which I love. I think there is a level of him that's an emotional guy, that's a sentimental person. I think he's always been that. He probably just never really showed it.”

Master horseman, innovator, and mentor, D. Wayne Lukas not only focuses his prodigious energy on those closest to him, enjoying his role as husband and patriarch, but also on the promising young horses now hitting the racetrack, their potential as exciting as that scene in the Preakness winner’s circle. “Our two-year-olds are very, very good. And I can see it coming. I can see what's about to happen. I get up every day and I know. And I think, ‘oh, boy, here we come.’”

John Ropes

Article by Bill Heller

John Ropes, jockey Miguel Angel Vasquez, trainer Michael Yates and connections celebrate Dorth Vader’s Davona Dale Stakes win at Gulfstream Park.

John Ropes, jockey Miguel Angel Vasquez, trainer Michael Yates and connections celebrate Dorth Vader’s Davona Dale Stakes win at Gulfstream Park.

A realistic outlook and a sense of humor are mighty handy tools for breeding and racing Thoroughbreds. John Ropes is blessed with both.

“If you’re in this business to make money, you’re in the wrong business,” Ropes said. “Once you’re infected, you’re hooked. The only way out is bankruptcy.”

Ropes is the head of Ropes Associates, an international executive search firm specializing in real estate development and related financial services in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, established in 1975. He began his Thoroughbred involvement five years later and opened Rosegrove Farm in Ocala in 1985. 

He has yet had the misfortune of bankruptcy to get out of the Thoroughbred business, but last year certainly tested his resolve. “We lost seven foals for a variety of reasons,” he said. ”It was extreme bad luck. You just have to put it behind you and keep moving on.”

And then a horse like Dorth Vader changes everything, giving Ropes his first graded stakes victory by taking the Gr.2 Davona Dale Stakes at Gulfstream Park, March 4, earning enough points to get into the Kentucky Oaks. Making the victory even sweeter were her odds: 46-1 in the field of 11. “Frankly, I thought she’d win,” Ropes said. “46-1? That was crazy.”

And fun. “We’ve had some fun in it,” Ropes said. “Horse racing should be fun. It’s an exciting business. I’ve been in it way too long. I love the business. You have to.”

His love of horses traces back to riding horses during a summer spent in England. “I always liked it,” Ropes said. “My parents always went to the track on New Year’s Day every year. But you had to be 21 to get in.”

He would get into racing at a level he could never have envisioned. He bought a riding horse when he was a senior in college, and he thanked a girl who worked for him, Dana Smithers, for getting him into Thoroughbreds. “Her father, Andy Smithers, is a trainer in Canada and in Florida,” Ropes said. “She told her dad I was interested, and Andy, who was then training at Gulfstream Park, found a horse for me. His name was Half French, and he was a $15,000 claimer who hadn’t won a race in a long time. I said, `Andy, why are we buying this horse?’ He said, `Look at those feet. These are grass feet.’”

Smithers was right. 

Dorth Vader winner of Gr.2 Davona Dale Stakes at Gulfstream Park

Dorth Vader

Shipped to Canada and switched to grass, he won two allowance races and finished fifth in $50,000 stakes. Ropes got an offer for $50,000 for his horse and turned it down. “Then he broke his leg,” Ropes said. Half French returned to the races after a year, but he was never the same horse. And Ropes hadn’t waited for his return before escalating his interest in Thoroughbreds.

Ropes’ burgeoning business, Ropes Associates, allowed him to pursue his passion. Ropes earned his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Florida and his Master’s in Business Administration at the University of Miami. He began Ropes Associates in 1975, and he became an important business leader in Fort Lauderdale. He became a governor in the Urban Land Institute, a non-profit research and education organization for real estate developers with offices in Washington, D.C., Hong Kong and London. Ropes served as chairman of the ULI’s Southeast Florida/Caribbean Real Estate Opportunities Conference held in Miami in 1993 and in Puerto Rico the following two years. He is also a licensed single-engine pilot.

Half French had given him an intriguing taste of Thoroughbred success, and he didn’t wait for his recovery to buy another.

“Half French broke his leg, and I had to buy other horses,” Ropes said. “Some had success, and some had not. I started breeding some fillies, and I knew nothing about breeding. Andy helped me. And then I said, `Why don’t I buy a farm?’”

He bought Rosegrove Farm in Ocala in 1985. His timing stunk. “That was just before President Reagan changed the tax laws,” Ropes said. “The market crashed for a horse farm. It was a brutal time. But somehow we lasted through it. Life is about experience.”

Seeking another experience, Ropes began training a few horses and selling horses before deciding to concentrate on breeding. “I bought all my own mares,” Ropes said. “I had mixed success. I had to step up my game. I got an agent, Marette Farrell. We were buying very good broodmares.”

He bought a really good one, Hardcore Candy, a daughter of Yonaguska out of the Thunder Gulch mare It’s a Girl. Hardcore Candy had won eight of 40 starts on the track and earned just over $100,000,

Bred to Girvin, Hardcore Candy foaled Dorth Vader. Ropes explained the name: “My significant other for the last six years is named Dorothy Harden. She’s an attorney. She said, 'You name a horse after all your family, but you’ve never named a horse for me.’ She liked Star Wars. We came up with Dorth Vader almost instantly. When I suggested it to her, she was a little shocked, but after a while, she liked it.”

Ropes usually breeds horses for the sales, but he had the good fortune to hold on to Dorth Vader. “Everyone at the farm loved Dorth Vader,” Ropes said. “Gayle Woods said she had a beautiful body, but that she was a little offset in her right front. I knew I wouldn’t get what she was worth at the sales. Gayle was so high on her, and so was everybody else on the farm. Gayle said, `She’s more of a runner.’”

She was. Trained by Michael Yates, Dorth Vader won three of her first five starts, including a four-length victory in the Just Secret Stakes for Florida-breds and a 2 ¼-length score in the $100,000 Sandpiper Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs. She then tired badly to finish a distant sixth in a $50,000 stakes at Tampa as the 7-5 favorite.

She was taking a mighty step up in the Gr.2 Davona Dale at Gulfstream Park and went off a huge price under jockey Miguel Vasquez. But she didn’t race like a hopeless longshot, disposing even-money favorite Red Carpet Ready in early stretch and powering away to a 4 ¾ length victory.

She’d given Ropes his first graded stakes. “It was a thrilling experience,” Ropes said. “Of 18,700 foals born, only 14 get into the Kentucky Oaks. She has enough points to make it, so we don’t have to do anything else. Nothing is as thrilling as winning a Gr.1 or a Gr.2 stakes. It’s excitement! It’s why we're in the business. I had never won a graded stakes before. Now I have.

Dorth Vader wins the 2023 Davona Dale Stakes at Gulfstream Park.

Dorth Vader wins the 2023 Davona Dale Stakes at Gulfstream Park.

Trainer Profile: Brad Cox

By Joe Nevills

Between the first of April and the first of July, Brad Cox saw the kind of career progression most trainers spend a lifetime trying in vain to achieve.

April started with Cox picking up his first Grade 1 win after Monomoy Girl conquered the Ashland Stakes at Keeneland. He finished the prestigious meet tied with Wesley Ward as the leading trainer by wins.

May saw the trainer and Monomoy Girl grab global headlines with a game victory in the Kentucky Oaks. In June, Cox found a new gear, adding another Grade 1 win with Monomoy Girl in the Acorn Stakes at Belmont Park, and another Grade 1 winner when Long On Value took the Highlander Stakes at Woodbine. Cox finished the month as the leading trainer of the Churchill Downs spring meet by earnings.

At age 38, with a stable of about 100 horses spread across four tracks, Cox has laid the groundwork to entrench himself among North America’s leading trainers for a long time to come. What will keep him there is his commitment to training like he’s still got 15 horses in his barn.

 

“We’re grinding every day,” Cox said. “We have a very good team assembled.”

Louisville upbringing

In the aftermath of Monomoy Girl’s Kentucky Oaks win, much was made of Cox’s local ties to Louisville, Kentucky. The story has become almost boilerplate when writing about the trainer at length: Cox grew up just two blocks from the Churchill Downs property, in a white house at 903 Evelyn Avenue in Louisville’s Wyandotte neighborhood. His father, Jerry Cox, a forklift driver at a local factory, took his son to the track as a child and the younger Cox caught the racing bug so severely, it became a career path.

The trainer admitted he does not often drive by to check on the house, just a stone’s throw off of Longfield Avenue, even though he is at the track nearly every day. His parents moved out a half-decade ago. Jerry died in 2016, and Mary resides in another part of town. However, the trainer’s reasons are less about sentiment and more about logistics.

“It’s kind of by Gate 10 (an entrance to the track’s parking lot]) and I go in and out of Gate 5 (the backstretch entrance),” he said.

What makes Cox’s success somewhat unique is that he is not a generational horseman. His father was noted in many stories for his affinity toward betting on Hall of Fame jockey Pat Day, but no one in the family had hands-on experience with horses to pass on to Brad. When he made his way on to the Churchill backstretch for the first time as a teenager, Cox started with a built-in handicap.

Cox made up for the lost time in spades by paying attention and being punctual. He hotwalked and worked as a groom for a handful of trainers on the Louisville backside, including Frank Brothers and William “Jinks” Fires. He relished the grunt work, slowly gaining the trust of his bosses and working his way up their ranks.

“It’s a tough business,” Cox said. “As far as coming to work every day, I enjoyed it. I had no problem getting up in the mornings. It wasn’t a job for me, and it’s still not a job for me. It’s something I love to do. I’ve always said getting up seven days a week is half the battle.”

Years later, Cox is now an equal to the trainers that gave him his start. Fires said he speaks with Cox regularly and considers him a friend.

“He’s gone on and become successful,” Fires said. “He pretty much did it himself. He had that work ethic to go on, and that’s what people do. When they want to, they go on, and he did it.”

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Trainer of the Quarter - Brad Cox

By Bill Heller

The quote greeting visitors to the Brad Cox Racing website tells you all you need to know about the 38-year-old trainer on an unbelievable roll: “I think to be successful at this, you’ve got to be somewhat obsessed.”

How could he not be?

In the space of six days, Cox, who grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, five blocks from Churchill Downs, realized he has two live contenders for the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks: Monomoy Girl, who gave Cox his first Grade 1 stakes victory when she won the Ashland Stakes by 5½ lengths at Keeneland on April 7th; and Sassy Sienna, who rallied to take the Grade 3 Fantasy Stakes by a nose at Oaklawn Park on April 13th. Monomoy Girl is now five-for-six, the lone miss a second by a neck in the Grade 2 Golden Rod Stakes last year. “When she hit the wire, it was like, ‘Wow!’” Cox said. “To get a Grade 1 is something I’ll never forget. She means a lot to us.”

Cox’s success isn’t surprising to trainer Dallas Stewart, Cox’s mentor for five years before he ventured on his own in 2004. “Brad is doing a great job,” Stewart said. “I’m very proud of him. He works hard. He’s doing what he should be doing. He’s knocking it out of the park.”

No lie there. In 2017, Cox posted career highs in victories and earnings for the fourth consecutive year, finishing eighth in wins (204) and ninth in earnings ($8.83 million) in North America. So far this year, he’s fifth in both categories. That’s quite a progression from winning just 52 races and $1.1 million in his first five years total.

Cox said he never wavered in his belief that he would be more successful during his lean years. “There’s no substitute for the hours you put in,” he said. “I kept telling myself, ‘You’re one of the younger guys doing it. You’ll get a break.’ I never even thought about doing something different. I made a commitment to myself: this is what I want to do. This is what I’m going to do. It’s a lot of work, but I do believe if you stay focused and do the right things every day, opportunity will knock. If you stay with it, you will get a chance.”

He has made the most of his chances. He credits the first two trainers he worked under, Burk Kessinger Jr. and Jimmy Baker, for teaching him “to take pride in horses, how to take care of a horse, and horsemanship.” He thanks Stewart, one of D. Wayne Lukas’ many assistants who have starred in their own careers, with “learning organization, how to run a large barn. It’s meant a lot to our program,” Cox said.

Cox’s stable has grown to 100 horses. They raced at Oaklawn Park and Keeneland this spring, and will race at Churchill Downs, Belmont, Saratoga, and in Indiana. “We’re very comfortable with where we are now,” he said.

And if succeeding requires a bit of obsession, so be it. “It’s something we talk about,” Cox said. “On a daily basis, you can work from the minute you wake up until the minute you go to bed. You can’t spend the time we do if you didn’t love it.”

Cox has loved it ever since his dad took him to Churchill Downs. “I was five or six years old,” Cox said. “I was intrigued.” He was intrigued enough to sneak into the track after school and dream: “I always dreamed of being big in the business. I’ve dreamed of having good horses for a while.”

He has them now. The up-and-comer has just about reached the head of the class.

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