What was D. Wayne Lukas’s Net Worth?

D. Wayne Lukas was an American horse trainer who had a net worth of $50 million at the time of his death. D. Wayne Lukas died on June 28, 2025, at the age of 89. An inductee into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, he has won numerous Breeders’ Cup and Triple Crown races, including all three of the Triple Crown races in 1995. Among his many other career achievements, Lukas won four Eclipse Awards for Outstanding Trainer, as well as the Eclipse Award of Merit.

Early Life and Education

Darrell Wayne Lukas was born on September 2, 1935 on a small farm in Antigo, Wisconsin. Because of this environment, he developed an interest in horses. For his higher education, Lukas attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he obtained a master’s degree in education.

Career Beginnings

After earning his master’s degree, Lukas taught at Logan High School in La Crosse, Wisconsin. He also served as the school’s head basketball coach. In 1968, Lukas began training quarter horses in California, and he soon became a major name in quarter horse racing. He trained a total of 23 world champions before he switched to Thoroughbred training.

Thoroughbred Training

As a trainer of Thoroughbred horses, Lukas had his career breakthrough in 1980 when he won the Preakness Stakes with Codex. He had his next big year in 1985, when he won his second Preakness Stakes and his first two Breeders’ Cup races, the Juvenile Fillies and the Distaff. For the year, Lukas earned his first Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer. He won that honor again in 1986, a year that also saw his horse Lady’s Secret win the Eclipse Award for Horse of the Year. Lukas won a third consecutive Outstanding Trainer honor in 1987. Also that year, he was named the United States Champion Thoroughbred Trainer by wins for the first of four consecutive years, with 343 wins. In 1988, Lukas won his first Kentucky Derby, with the fillie Winning Colors. Throughout most of the 1980s and into the early ’90s, Lukas was the United States Champion Thoroughbred Trainer by earnings, with his biggest haul being $17.8 million in 1988.

In 1990, Lukas had his second horse to win the Horse of the Year award: Criminal Type. Four years later, Lukas won his third Preakness Stakes and his first Belmont Stakes, as well as two Breeders’ Cup races. He earned his fourth and final Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer, and returned to the top of the pack as the US Champion Thoroughbred Trainer by earnings, a position he held onto for the subsequent three years. Lukas went on to have arguably his greatest career year in 1995, when he swept the Triple Crown races. His horse Thunder Gulch won the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes, and Timber Country won the Preakness. Lukas almost swept the Triple Crown races again in 1996, but lost the Preakness. He came close to another sweep in 1999, when Horse of the Year Charismatic only lost the Belmont Stakes. Also that year, Lukas won his first Breeders’ Cup Classic, and was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.

(Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

Kicking off the new millennium, Lukas won his fourth career Belmont Stakes and his fourth career Breeders’ Cup Distaff. His next major win came in the 2002 Breeders’ Cup Sprint, with Orientate. Three years later, he won his fifth career Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, with Folklore. Lukas reached a milestone in 2013 with his sixth career Preakness Stakes victory, giving him a record 14th Triple Crown race victory for his career. The previous record-holder was Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons. Lukas was subsequently given the Eclipse Award of Merit, the highest honor in the Thoroughbred horse racing industry. He hit another milestone in 2024 when he won his seventh career Preakness Stakes, breaking Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons’s record for the oldest trainer to win a Triple Crown race. Lukas was 88 years of age. He also extended his record for the most Triple Crown race victories in a career, with 15.

Personal Life

Lukas was married a total of five times. With his first wife, he had a son named Jeff who worked as his right-hand man. However, in late 1993, Lukas’s future champion racehorse Tabasco Cat seriously injured Jeff at Santa Anita Park. Thrown into the air, he fell on concrete and suffered a skull fracture that put him in a coma for a number of weeks. Jeff was left with permanent brain damage, vision and memory problems, and personality changes. Although he was able to return to working with horses, he eventually had to stop due to his disabilities, and in 2007 he moved to Atoka, Oklahoma to work for his father’s former manager David Burrage at Burrage’s First Bank. Jeff lived in Atoka until his passing in 2016.