Source: USA TODAY

BALTIMORE — Half a dozen reporters huddled in a misty rain a little after 4 Sunday morning, waiting in the dark at the Pimlico barns for the winningest trainer in Triple Crown history to make a promised appearance.

D. Wayne Lukas had told the press corps the night before — in the afterglow of Oxbow’s wire-to-wire win in the Preakness that gave Lukas his record 14th Triple Crown win — he’d be taking his horses home at 4:30 a.m.

Really? Couldn’t he make it a bit later, say, 5:30?

“Some of us in this great nation get up and get after it in the morning,” Lukas said then. “Others sleep in.”

And so the reporters dutifully arrived at the track at 4 a.m. and found no one but security guards at their posts, horses in their stalls and early birds chirping in the pines. Oxbow poked his head out of Stall 24 at one point and looked around, apparently unaware of the stir he’d caused across the racing world only hours earlier.

At last, at 4:41 a.m., Lukas sauntered up, sized up the contingent waiting for him and pronounced, “I’m impressed.” He said he woke up at 10 minutes before 3 and had been held up just a bit by his drivers.

“You know me well enough that if I said 4:30, that son of a bitch is going to be there at 4 and leave us,” Lukas said, chuckling with the cadre that had by now swelled to eight.

So, how had he celebrated history? Lukas said he got back to the hotel after the Preakness and had a plate of hot apple pie topped by a double scoop of ice cream. And then went to sleep. He wanted to be on the road early to keep his horses on their routines.

“I’ll get them home at feeding time, just about,” he said. “By the time I get them home and give them a bath, it’ll be about 5 o’clock and they’ll eat right on schedule.”

Why not send the staff with the horses and take a plane back to Louisville? “Because things happen,” he said. If a truck breaks down, or something else should occur, he wants to be there to make the decisions.

“I’ve always rode with the horses,” he said. “Used to on the airplanes stand with them, you know, but we don’t fly much anymore.”

Lukas pointed at his staff, busy with the horses and loading gear onto the trucks in the dank darkness. “I love my staff,” he said. “Look at those guys. Not a word said. Everybody knows exactly what we’re going to do, where we’re going to go. … No loud talking. Not one of those guys had a beer last night.”

Lukas is 77. Nobody asked how much longer he wants to do this. He sort of answered it anyway. “This is a really easy game, really, in a lot of ways,” he said. “It really is. The horse is the most important ingredient. I don’t do anything physical. Get out on the pony, ride out there, sit around, make decisions, nothing to it. Do it forever.”

Then he summarized his duties: “Point to these guys, ‘Do this, do that. Pick this up.’ Talk to you guys.” And here he enjoyed an early-morning horse laugh.

He said he was impressed by Oxbow’s early lead: “That rascal was opening six, seven, eight lengths on the gallop out. … I was amazed how fresh he was after the race. … He didn’t even break a sweat.”

Lukas said he and jockey Gary Stevens talked about taking a lead if it was offered.

“We’re just going to take what comes easy,” he said. “We’re not going to give up what they let us have. Any athletic event, I don’t care if it’s basketball, football, or what it is, you take what they give you.”

Praise poured in from his peers for the way Lukas got his Preakness winner ready.

“It was a masterful job,” Tom Amoss, trainer of third-place finisher Mylute said of Lukas. “As far as Wayne is concerned, you’ve got to tip your hat to him. Over the last year he’s made a remarkable comeback and put himself where he used to be, which is at the top of the trainers’ charts.”

Lukas said Oxbow will run in the Belmont in three weeks, unless he should give some reason not. Lukas knew Oxbow was in good shape Saturday after three-quarters of a mile.

“That stride, that cruising speed that he gets into,” he said. “I turned to the lieutenant governor, and he doesn’t know fractions from what, but I just said to him, because he was the only guy standing next to me, ‘If we get a 1:13 three-quarters here, it’s over,’ and it flashed up and he said, ‘How’s that?’ And I said. ‘Perfect. Here we go.’ “

Lukas had two other horses in the race but knew Oxbow was his best shot. “I was trying to be politically correct all week” and not say that publicly. “I thought he was the toughest horse.”

Lukas said he’d pass the time on the ride back listening to George Strait and Toby Keith. “The drivers and the other guys don’t like it,” he said, “but I get all the votes.”

He hopes the Belmont goes more smoothly than last year, when one of his horses reared up and struck Lukas on the head a few days before the race. I’ve still got that little scar there to show for it,” Lukas said, pointing at the top of his head. “I hope that doctor doesn’t come by. I don’t think I paid her.”

He’d said the night before that they’d drive straight through, maybe stop at Wendy’s twice. So, do people recognize the Hall of Fame trainer at road stops?

“If you’re in the race horse business, your notoriety is in a one-block area, for sure,” he said. “I always tell people we’re famous for about three blocks from Churchill Downs.”

With that the 14-time Triple Crown winner took his leave. A few minutes later he added one last point in the sweetness of the light morning rain. He remembered loading up the next day after Codex had won the first of Lukas’ six Preakness victories,in 1980.

“Thirty-three years ago,” he said, “and it was misty, just like this.”

Possible Belmont Stakes entries

Possible entries for the 145th Belmont Stakes on June 8 at Belmont Park, according to the New York Racing Association:

Horse Trainer Last race

Oxbow; D. Wayne Lukas; Won Preakness

Freedom Child; Tom Albertrani; Won Peter Pan Stakes

Golden Soul; Dallas Stewart; Second, Kentucky Derby

Overanalyze; Todd Pletcher; 11th, Kentucky Derby

Palace Malice; Todd Pletcher; 12th, Kentucky Derby

Revolutionary; Todd Pletcher; 3rd, Kentucky Derby

Code West; Bob Baffert; Won allowance, Pimlico

Power Broker; Bob Baffert; Won allowance, Churchill Downs

Itsmyluckyday; Eddie Plesa Jr.; Second, Preakness

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

BALTIMORE — D. Wayne Lukas sat at the podium at the victors’ news conference Saturday evening, waiting for his jockey to arrive.

“I don’t mind waiting,” Lukas said with a smile as wide as Oxbow’s winning margin in the Preakness Stakes. “It’s going to be a long night.”

Lukas had just won his 14th Triple Crown race as a trainer, a record. No wonder he didn’t mind waiting for Gary Stevens. He had waited since that last Triple Crown win, way back in 2000.

And then, before he could be asked a question, Lukas posed one of his own, just musing at the microphone: “Is this a great country or what?”

Lukas is 77. Stevens is 50. When at last they appeared on the podium together, they were the Sunshine Boys, all big laughs and big smiles.

Gary, are you the first grandfather to win a Triple Crown race?

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that,” he said, feigning that he couldn’t make out the question. Then: “I guarantee you I am the first grandfather winner of a Triple Crown race.”

At that point Lukas posed as a reporter and asked his jockey when he thought he had the race won.

“In these classic races,” Stevens said, “you don’t give up anything they give you for free, and they gave me a free three-quarters of a mile today, and I was smiling pretty good midway down the backside.”

The trainer and the jockey weren’t the only ones all smiles. Their horse was, too.

“Wayne Lukas has this whole thing he tells jockeys with instructions. ‘Take about five pounds of pressure on those reins, put a little smile on their face and give them some confidence,’ ” Stevens said. “That kept ringing in my ear when I was in the starting gate today, just making (Oxbow) comfortable and put a smile on his face.

“And he had that smile on his face for a long ways today.”

Lukas had a smile of his own as he said how proud he was of breaking the record of 13 Triple Crown wins that he had shared with Sunny Fitzsimmons. And then, another joke: “It’s probably going to be on Trivial Pursuit in about five minutes.”

Stevens would make a good answer in the old board game as well. He had been retired for seven years, even gone to broadcasting Triple Crown races on NBC, before coming back this year.

“It doesn’t get any better than this,” he said. “This is super, super sweet and it happened for the right guy. All the stars were aligned.”

And the moon, too — Orb, son of Malibu Moon, the big favorite, finished fourth. Stevens was surprised he didn’t get a challenge from Orb, or any other horse, in the stretch.

“I couldn’t believe that no one challenged me going into the far turn,” Stevens said, “but when no one did, I said, ‘I think everybody’s in trouble right now.’ “

And then, as a hint that Oxbow can run well in the mile-and-a-half Belmont in three weeks, he said: “A lot of critics are going to think I’m full of it for saying this, but I won with a little something left, believe it or not.”

Stevens played a jockey as a TV and movie actor during his brief retirement. His smile Saturday was no act: “It’s just funny how things go. But one race can boost your spirits, doesn’t matter if you’re 16 or 50.”

By the end of his portion of the news conference, Lukas was equally ebullient. Asked about advice he would give to anyone who wanted to be a trainer, he spoke of the young guys who say they’ll clean stalls just to be close to the action.

“It’s not a 9-to-5 job,” Lukas said. “The most important thing is to have a complete, unquestionable passion for the industry and what you want to do. Then I tell them, don’t get married. You can have a trainer’s license or a marriage license.”

Warm laughter washed the room.

“Any superlatives you’d like to use on Oxbow,” Lukas added with his 14-win smile, “just feel free.”

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

Oneida Indian Nation Representative Ray Halbritter plans to give a $10,000 check to Cooperstown (N.Y.) Central School at a board meeting Wednesday evening and to praise the students who pushed to oust the district’s longtime name of Redskins.

The check is to defray the cost for new uniforms when the name Hawkeyes becomes effective on July 1.

“They’re making this decision right in the shadow of the Baseball Hall of Fame,” Halbritter told USA TODAY Sports on Tuesday. “They’re showing much more thoughtful and respectful initiatives than many of these wealthy major-league team owners. … These wonderful kids have done such an inclusive, respectful and thoughtful thing.”

Halbritter mentioned the cartoonish image of Chief Wahoo that is the symbol of the Cleveland Indians: “High school students are showing more wisdom than these wealthy major league owners.”

Hawkeyes is an elegant solution for the upstate village that was the hometown of James Fenimore Cooper, as it is a nickname of Natty Bumppo, hero of Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales series.

Halbritter, who is also CEO of Oneida Nation Enterprises, said if other high schools want to make a similar change they might also be offered assistance. He said the Washington professional football team that uses the R-word is a billion-dollar franchise “and they don’t need our money.”

He urged the Washington football team to follow the Cooperstown students’ lead: “Here’s the national team in the national capital and we want the world to believe that we have a better way of doing things. Democracy and equality for all means something to us and symbols mean things. And I just think that the national team should be representing more than a racist stereotype.”

Halbritter said it is important to remember for whom the city of Washington is named.

“We were allies in the Revolutionary War and George Washington was a friend of ours,” Halbritter said. “This country recognizes us specifically in treaties because of our contributions in the Revolutionary War.

“I find it very personally offensive that a man we respect, the father of our country, is recognized with a racist stereotype. I think it is disgraceful. But I suppose when you are wealthy and you are rich, you don’t have to care too much what other people think.”

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.