Five underappreciated champions trained by D. Wayne Lukas

As serious health issues have forced Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas into retirement at the age of 89, thoughts turn reflective about the inevitable passing of time in our own lives. The horses of our youth have become distant memories, some more indelible than others, but all tinged with the nostalgia of a bygone age.

Many of those memorable horses were trained by Lukas. It’s too easy just to start reciting the names of his Hall of Famers, all females – Lady’s Secret, Winning Colors, Open Mind, Serena’s Song, and Azeri (a transfer later in her career).

Winning Colors, only the third (and most recent) filly in history to win the Kentucky Derby (G1), is among the most celebrated of Lukas’s 15 classic winners. Three of his colts won two-thirds of the Triple Crown, each in different combinations. Charismatic won the 1999 Derby and Preakness (G1), while Tabasco Cat captured the 1994 Preakness and Belmont (G1), and Thunder Gulch scored the Derby/Belmont bookends in 1995. 

Yet I’d like to highlight five of his champions who are arguably underappreciated in racing’s collective memory. The very phrase – “underappreciated champions” – gives a hint of Lukas’s game-changing record. When you’ve developed more than two dozen Eclipse Award winners, including five Hall of Famers, a few are going to get lost in the shuffle.

Here’s my quintet of interest, in no particular order other than narrative flow. 

Timber Country 

Thunder Gulch’s bid for the Triple Crown was snuffed out in the Preakness by resurgent stablemate Timber Country, the champion two-year-old colt who had endured a series of losses. 

Timber Country was a striking chestnut son of Woodman and the blue hen Fall Aspen. The $500,000 Keeneland July yearling took time to find himself at two, but he ended the season strong. After an uncharacteristically front-running victory in the Champagne (G1), he reverted to his habitual closing tactics when driving clear in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1).

Timber Country dropped his first three starts as a sophomore, but again rounded into form with racing. Favored in the Kentucky Derby as half of the entry along with star filly Serena’s Song, Timber Country rallied belatedly for third to the 24-1 Thunder Gulch. 

Fans kept faith with Timber Country at Pimlico, sending the reigning champion off as the 1.90-1 favorite in the Preakness, and he rewarded their loyalty. Rolling past Thunder Gulch, who wound up third, Timber Country appeared a handier winner than the half-length margin indicates.

Unfortunately, Timber Country never raced again. He spiked a fever that knocked him out of the Belmont, and a tendon injury ended his career. Perhaps his pedigree made me view him through rose-colored glasses, but I always thought that Timber Country was felled before he reached his prime.

Surfside

Timber Country’s champion stablemate Flanders, who staved off Serena’s Song in an epic 1994 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1), could have qualified for this category herself. Flanders achieved a pyrrhic victory, for she sustained career-ending injuries in the process. While the hardy Serena’s Song went on to a Hall of Fame career, we’re left to wonder what Flanders might have been. Still, their battle is enshrined in Breeders’ Cup lore, ensuring that Flanders will never be forgotten.

But Flanders’ champion daughter, Surfside, isn’t as well remembered. By Triple Crown legend Seattle Slew, Surfside was a stellar first foal for Flanders. Lukas at one stage reportedly compared Surfside to his Derby heroine Winning Colors, although injury prevented her from even going for the roses.

Not as formidable as her dam at two, Surfside nevertheless emulated her by winning the 1999 Frizette (G1). She demonstrated bravery to come again on the rail after being passed by Darling My Darling (now famous as the granddam of champion Sierra Leone and Japanese star Forever Young).

Settling for placings in the Spinaway (G1) and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, Surfside delivered a breakout performance when romping by seven lengths in the Hollywood Starlet (G1). She compiled a four-race winning streak until trying the boys in the Santa Anita Derby (G1), where she finished fifth and exited with an injury.

Surfside resumed in the fall of 2000 with a promising second in the seven-furlong Raven Run S. to Darling My Darling. The Breeders’ Cup Distaff (G1) marked Surfside’s second start off the layoff, and she ran a commendable second to her 55-1 stablemate Spain. 

Wheeling back for the Clark H. (G2) over the same 1 1/8-mile trip at Churchill Downs, Surfside made history by becoming the first – and so far only – sophomore filly to beat older males in the signature event of the fall meet. She turned in a masterful wire job, drawing away by four lengths, to earn a divisional Eclipse Award. That proved to be her last win, as she went off form early in 2001, but Surfside was devastating on her day. 

Orientate

Orientate was the offspring of two Lukas celebrities, the high-class sprinter Mt. Livermore and 1987 Oak Leaf (G1) winner Dream Team. Neither parent managed to win a Breeders’ Cup race, with Mt. Livermore placing third in the 1985 Sprint (G1) and Dream Team filling the same spot in the 1987 Juvenile Fillies. But Orientate succeeded where they did not, and he crowned his career in the 2002 Sprint.

Perfect when sprinting on the main track that season, Orientate swept the Commonwealth (G2), Aristides H. (G3), Smile Sprint H., A.G. Vanderbilt H. (G2), and Forego H. (G1) en route to the Breeders’ Cup. His only losses during his championship campaign came on turf or routing.

Orientate might have stuck to his one-turn specialty sooner if he hadn’t succeeded when venturing beyond those conditions as a sophomore. He earned his first stakes win in the 2001 Indiana Derby and added the Sir Beaufort S. (now the Mathis Mile) on the Santa Anita turf. In between, Orientate attempted the Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1) but faded to 12th behind repeating champion Tiznow. 

Lukas’s other Sprint winner, Gulch (1988), likewise had competed in the prior year’s Classic, checking in ninth in his final outing for LeRoy Jolley in 1987. Gulch alternated between sprints and routes during his 1988 season with Lukas. In addition to his fine record at stud, Gulch’s placings to all-time greats Alysheba and Personal Ensign keep him in view more than Orientate.

Criminal Type

When Hall of Famers Sunday Silence and Easy Goer returned to action as four-year-olds in 1990, one would naturally have thought that the Horse of the Year battle would revolve around them once again. But both would be floored by the five-year-old Criminal Type.

An atypical Lukas trainee, Criminal Type had begun his career in France under the tutelage of Patrick Biancone. Starting out on turf made sense for the younger half-brother to champion turf female Estrapade.

But Criminal Type ended up taking more after sire Alydar, a dirt aptitude that eventually shone stateside for Lukas. Although he captured his first two U.S. graded stakes early in 1990, the San Pasqual H. (G2) and San Antonio H. (G2), Criminal Type reached the peak of his powers later in the spring and summer. 

In the 1 3/16-mile Pimlico Special H. (G1), Criminal Type tied Secretariat’s track record of 1:53. He overcame a troubled start to stalk and collar Ruhlmann, whom he hadn’t been able to catch in the Santa Anita H. (G1) or San Bernardino H. (G2).

Criminal Type came right back 16 days later at Belmont Park, shortened up to a one-turn mile in the Metropolitan H. (G1), and wore down Hall of Famer Housebuster to record a stratospheric 120 Brisnet Speed rating. Easy Goer, the 2-5 favorite, closed mildly for third under his 127-pound impost.

Back out west for the Hollywood Gold Cup (G1), Criminal Type outdueled Sunday Silence in a thriller. Sunday Silence accosted Criminal Type turning for home, but he found this chestnut son of Alydar to be more of a street-fighter than Easy Goer was. Criminal Type dug in fiercely on the inside and prevailed by a neck, getting five pounds from Sunday Silence. 

Criminal Type made it four in a row in Saratoga’s Whitney (G1), toting 126 pounds to beat the versatile millionaire Dancing Spree. But his skein came to an end with a sixth in the Woodward (G1), and he exited with an injury that prompted his retirement. 

Yet Criminal Type already compiled an Eclipse-worthy resume, while Easy Goer and Sunday Silence had preceded him into the retiree ranks. The voters accordingly honored Criminal Type as Horse of the Year. 

Steinlen

The greatest outlier of all the Lukas stars was Steinlen, a European import who became his only turf champion. If not for the French-trained diva Miesque, the Daniel Wildenstein homebred would have been a two-time Breeders’ Cup Mile (G1) hero. 

Like Criminal Type, Steinlen was also initially trained by Biancone in France. The late-maturing son of Habitat won a pair of listed stakes at the age of four, but he developed into an elite performer over a range of distances on the U.S. turf.

Steinlen combined the virtues of consistency and versatility along with talent and longevity, as his career mark of 45-20-10-7 indicates. He won or placed in a grand total of 30 stakes, and most of his 26 stateside credits came at the graded level.  

Lukas had the inspiration to try him over six furlongs in the 1988 Laurel Dash as his tune-up for the Breeders’ Cup, and Steinlen flew to get up in a photo. The sprint sharpened him up for the Mile at Churchill, where he outperformed his 37-1 odds as the runner-up to Miesque.

After scoring his first Grade 1 laurel in the 1989 Bernard Baruch H. (G1) in a five-length demolition job, Steinlen stretched out to 1 1/4 miles to land the Arlington Million (G1). He remained in winning form through that November’s Mile at Gulfstream Park, defying a troubled passage to get through on the inside and wrap up the Eclipse Award.

Steinlen again prospered going back up in trip in 1990, adding the Hollywood Turf H. (G1) and Caesars International H. (G2) in course-record time at Atlantic City. Although he lost his Million and Baruch titles, Steinlen signed off with a respectable fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Belmont Park.

As Steinlen proves, Lukas could train horses of all sorts of capabilities, not just the flashy classic colts and warrior fillies that often loom in the forefront of historical memory.