Here is a photo from 1988 of Winning Colors with her trainers D. Wayne and Jeff Lukas, father and son. Today the Daily Racing Form and NTRA webpages had very nice stories about this proud, big girl.
Her grandma was purchased with a filly at side by the Sucher family at Echo Valley Farm in Georgetown, Kentucky. That filly became Winning Colors' mama. When they went to sell Winning Colors as a yearling, D. Wayne Lukas saw her and knew that she was a big girl with big muscle. He purchased her for Eugene V. Klein. The daughter in this family, Carmie, now 44, said that she remembered Winning Colors as headstrong -- her first word for her.
Carmie said, "She was one of those horses that did what she wanted to do. She had a plan. She was a strong, husky filly, and she was always very attractive with her roan color. She stood out. She was a good horse, but she could drag you around when you walked her, if she wanted to go look at something. She wasn't laid back. She always had a mission."
They sold her as a yearling, and then didn't see her again until she was 3 in the Derby. The 1988 Derby that she won was the only Derby Carmie has been to. Winning Colors gave the first Derby victory to her entire family -- to her parents -- the Suchers, to her trainers Jeff and Wayne, and to her new dad, Eugene V. Klein. They had never had a taste of the roses before this big girl won the roses for them.
Carmie said of that Derby day, "We hadn't seen her since she was a yearling, and she was just huge. She was larger than life then."
Another nice story about Winning Colors came out of Southeast Oklahoma from the little town of 2,988 people Atoka. Jeff Lukas, WC's trainer, now lives in Atoka. He said fondly of her, "She was always a big, tall, long-striding filly -- an extremely well-structured individual. The thing about her was just controlling her. She was not the kind that would just settle down. We had to keep her from doing too much because she tried to put a lot into her training that wasn't necessary. "
In the Daily Racing Form article today, he discusses the need for strong understanding exercise riders and about how she'd bring her heart to specific tracks.
His story is amazing because it's a miracle he has memories at all. On December 15, 1993, he was knocked into the ground by a runaway colt, Tabasco Cat, who would go on to win the 1994 Preakness and Belmont Stakes. Mr. Lukas received a head injury so severe that he went into a coma and was under peril of dying because blood kept going into his lower brain column's entry into the spine. They drilled a hole into his head. The doctor said that the injury was as severe as a serious automobile or motorcycle accident.
Jeff Lukas left horse training and lost his marriage, though he still has a good fathering relationship with his growing children. Now he works for a bank of a family friend in Atoka. And he says of the hand that life dealt him, "Getting out of the house, working full-time, it feels great. I turned 5-0 last year, and it was no problem. After all I've been through, I'm glad to have birthdays."
Isn't this a nice group of people and a nice powerful, bossy, girl with a mission? We don't have any more living fillies