Contenders

     The 23-year-old from Lima, Peru, had his breakout year in 2008, carrying the momentum from his stunning Belmont Stakes upset of Big Brown aboard 38-1 Da’Tara through to the Saratoga Meeting, taking the title there against what most believe to be the world’s most concentrated collection of riding talent.
     He rode the Belmont winner for trainer Nick Zito but he’s had winners for other trainers and has enjoyed prosperous relationships with other trainers, especially Kiaran McLaughlin, for who he has ridden numerous winners, namely Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf winner Lahudood. 
     Although he wanted to be a soccer player in his youth, he followed his father Dagoberto and took up a riding career. He was the leading apprentice rider in Peru following his graduation from the riding academy there, and was best of the bug riders at the Meadowlands later that year but was sidelined for a few months following an appendectomy. On his return he rode in Maryland and New Jersey, then went to the New York-Florida.

     Owned by Robert Baker, chairman of the Purchase, N.Y.-based National Realty and Development Corp., the farm was named after a colt by the same name that Baker owned and raced in partnership with David Cornstein and William Mack. The colt, trained by Wayne Lukas, won the Futurity and Champagne at Belmont Park and ran second the next year in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint.
     Grand Slam did well enough at stud that Coolmore bought a half-interest in him for $5 million. Baker, Cornstein and Mack also raced Grade 1 winner Scorpion and Proud Citizen, runner-up in the 2002 Kentucky Derby and third in the Preakness. Had Proud Citizen won the Belmont, the group would have donated the entire $600,000 winner’s share to the Twin Towers Fund. The colt finished fifth but the group still donated $100,000.

    With 32 starters, no trainer has been as heavily represented in the Preakness as Lukas, and with five winners, few have had as much success. His winners include his first Preakness starter, Codex in 1980, followed by Tank’s Prospect in 1985, Tabasco Cat in 1994, Timber Country in 1995 and Charismatic in 1999.
    Raised on a 10-acre farm outside Antigo, Wisc., Lukas earned a master’s degree in education from the state university there, became a teacher in his hometown and coached the basketball team, the “Red Robins,” for seven years.
    Lukas came from humble beginnings as a trainer, rising up from quarter horse racetracks in Texas and bush tracks in South Dakota. It’s a long way from where he is now, tied with “Sunny Jim” Fitzsimmons with 13 victories in Triple Crown races. Hall of Fame horsemen John Nerud, as Tartan Stable racing manager, assigned their top prospect Codex to Lukas’ barn and that colt became his first classic winner, taking the 1980 Preakness. That race was one of 4,500 combined quarter horse and thoroughbred victories Lukas

    Husband and wife team owns the 173-acre Mulholland Springs Farm in Lexington, Ky., a 173-acre breeding farm is a boutique operation. The two come from divergent backgrounds: John a native of Sharon, Mass., who left New England to join the marines when he was 18, and Martha Jane, a native of Oklahoma City who holds a bachelor’s from the University of Oklahoma and a Juris Doctorate from Vanderbilt. One of her cousins, Martha McCauley, is married to Hall of Fame horseman Mack Miller. The original Mulholland Farm catered to quarter horses and was located in Edmund, Okla.; the transition to thoroughbreds, and to Kentucky, was made in 1987. The Mulhollands sold Flying Private for $700,000 at the Keeneland September yearling sale in 2007.