A life in the barn: 86-year-old Wayne Lukas prepares for Preakness with Secret Oath

Many years ago, when D. Wayne Lukas was a younger man, when he ruled the thoroughbred racing world like a Colossus in leather chaps while on horseback in the morning and $3,000 suits while in the paddock in the afternoon; when he commuted to his four separate racing divisions in a private jet (and sometimes in a helicopter); when he had more than 400 horses and nearly as many human employees; when he was not just larger than his ancient sport but larger than life; he was approached one day by his business manager, a practical man named David Burrage, who suggested to Lukas that perhaps it was time to install a more corporate culture at D. Wayne Lukas Racing Stables. Starting with paid vacation for his managers, among them a handful of twenty- and thirty-something young assistant trainers who would go on to terrific solo careers, and also Lukas’s son, and only child, Jeff.

Lukas was aghast at the idea. “What are you talking about?” he said to Burrage. “These guys won’t want to do that. Jeff won’t want to do that.” Burrage gently instructed his boss: “Actually, they all want vacation and Jeff was the first one to agree to it.” Grudgingly, almost disbelievingly, Lukas agreed to grant some leave to his assistants. But decades later, the incident stays with Burrage, 66, who worked for Lukas from 1980-’99. “I realized then, that Wayne’s vacation was going to the stable at four o’clock in the morning every day,” says Burrage. “We all know a lot of people who love what they do, but Wayne is different from most of them. He loves what he does, but he only loves that one thing. And he does it all the time, and he doesn’t do anything else.

“I’ve not, in my entire life, met anyone like him.”

It is a story, one among many like it,