Friendship blossoms between Derby rivals Lukas, Baffert

Back in January, trainer Bob Baffert shipped Mourinho to Oaklawn Park for the Smarty Jones Stakes, a stop on the 2018 Kentucky Derby trail, with fellow Hall of Famer D. Wayne Lukas agreeing to oversee the colt in the week leading up to the race.

“I asked him, ‘What do you want to do?’” Lukas said of the training schedule. Baffert told him, “Whatever you want.”

So Lukas schooled Mourinho in the gate and paddock. He led him out for morning gallops. And he didn’t hear from Baffert again until a call arrived on Lukas’ way to the winner’s circle.

“Before I could say anything,” Lukas remembered, Baffert said, “Who would have thought 37 years ago that Donald Trump would be president and that Wayne Lukas would be my assistant?”

This, the two Hall of Famers acknowledged, is a case of rivals becoming friends.

They both trained quarter horses, switched to thoroughbreds and battled in California’s top stakes races. Baffert remains on the West Coast these days and Lukas the Kentucky circuit, perhaps why the two seem less like adversaries than ever.

Until recent years, it seemed the sport wanted to pit the two against one another. The only time it truly happened was when both trained for the late Bob Lewis, competing for his top prospects.

“It was the quarter horse guys going up against each other,” Baffert said.

But there are no hard feelings now.

“What we do is, we feed you guys all that baloney, and then we go to dinner at night,” Lukas said with a laugh.

Jeff Ruby’s downtown Louisville steakhouse should be the spot once Baffert makes his way to Louisville this week to saddle Justify and Solomini in the Derby. Lukas will be represented by a stakes winner of his own, Bravazo.

Both trainers are looking for their fifth win in America’s greatest race.

“To me, Wayne Lukas was always the bar,” Baffert said, and there’s really no reaching it with Lukas having transformed the spot with organization, work ethic and outside-the-box training methods.

“He changed quarter horse racing in California,” Baffert added. “He came into Thoroughbreds and did the same thing.”

On the other hand, Lukas saying if there’s any trainer who can continue innovating and end the so-called Apollo’s Curse, it’s Baffert. His Justify is unbeaten at age 3 but un-raced at 2. The only horse to win the Kentucky Derby without starting as a juvenile was Apollo…in 1882.

Lukas even asked Baffert to write a foreword in his upcoming book, a collection of quotes collected by the 82-year-old’s wife.

“I have the utmost respect for him,” Baffert said. “He always thinks positive, and he’s sharp. He knows what’s going on, and he’ll see horses train — he knows. He’s still a great horseman.”

The feeling is mutual.