It was early May 1994, and D. Wayne Lukas had been on a brutal run. The erstwhile king of thoroughbred trainers hadn’t won a Grade I stakes race in more than two years, had lost his 10-year grip on the national training title, had endured the fatal breakdown of Union City in the 1993 Preakness, and had seen his son and top assistant, Jeff, suffer a severe brain injury when he was run over by a fractious colt named Tabasco Cat. Outside Barn 44 at Churchill Downs one morning leading up to that year’s Kentucky Derby, I asked Lukas how he was handling the pileup of adversity.
He scoffed.
