Lukas a Welcome Sight for Churchill Downs Training

Though some of the usual Derby Week sights were missing on the Churchill Downs backstretch Aug. 28 as horses completed their final drills for the Sept. 5 Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1), one constant remained: 84-year-old D. Wayne Lukas spent the morning on his stable pony, overseeing training.

The Hall of Famer, sidelined this month with COVID-19, appeared none the worse for wear, though he said he was not well a short time ago. Before he returned to his barn about a week ago after isolating at home during recuperation, he went through periods of struggling for breath.

"I lost consciousness twice, like I was going to sleep. Scared the hell out of me," Lukas said.

Lukas, who lost more than 20 pounds through the ordeal, said he first went to the hospital where he was evaluated for fluid in his chest, a complication they believed was caused by ribs he had broken when bucked off a horse this year. He said he didn't feel bad when they sent him home, but his condition deteriorated.

"I went home and I got so sick," he said. "They called me late that evening, said, 'You have the virus.' I said, 'You didn't need to call me. I could have told you.'

"But we rode it out. Boy, I tell you what, it wasn't any fun."

He is one of many who have contracted COVID-19 across the country and among those who work at Churchill Downs. The track announced 47 positive cases discovered among 1,823 tests among staff, vendors, and horsemen in testing from Aug. 19-24. Still others caught it before that time period, such as Lukas and 80-year-old trainer Jinks Fires, who said he returned to work a few days ago after recovering. According to Lukas, two Churchill Downs outriders tested positive but were asymptomatic.

This summer, Lukas did not take his stable as usual to Saratoga Race Course, focusing instead on Kentucky. He has had a successful meet at Ellis Park, where entering Friday's card he had won seven races, tying him for third in the standings.

While Lukas was recuperating, assistant Bas Nicholl looked after his Churchill barn. 

Churchill Downs has a COVID-19 testing area located inside its stable gate, and each day health questions are asked of those entering the backside and their temperatures are checked. Most on the Churchill Downs backstretch wore masks Friday.

Lukas, who turns 85 Sept. 2, is a four-time winner of the Kentucky Derby and has won 14 races in the Triple Crown, the last of which was the 2013 Preakness Stakes (G1) with Oxbow . He said this year's Derby, which was postponed from the first Saturday in May and will be run without fans amid COVID-19 and ongoing racial justice protests in the city of Louisville, feels much different.

Camerapeople often line the backstretch rail before final pre-Derby workouts, as do local television crews. Few were there Friday as a result of access restrictions imposed to reduce the spread of the virus.

"I think they really did the right thing," he said of Churchill scrapping its intention to run the Derby before as many as 23,000 fans. "But having said that, it's lost a lot of its atmosphere."