How Does Lukas Train?

Lukas trained Steinlen at left. They bred this great horse to 100 mares. What's with that? See 30 days of Steinlen training near end of this post.

How Lukas trained in the late 1980s Ross Staaden covers comprehensively in his book. There are training charts for the month of June for every horse in the Hollywood Park stable, as well as discussions with Lukas, assistant trainers, vets, exercise riders, and various observers of Lukas training.

As Staaden notes and Lukas emphasizes, a hallmark of Lukas training is flexibility. While that's hardly news, there is a difference in athletics when adjustments are made by one that has an intuitive instinct for developing athletes, as opposed to your standard questionably witted athletic trainer. In the hands of someone like Lukas, evaluating a training program day to day means something.

In this regard I've noted Lukas changed things up here and there over the years. When the sort of training covered in the Staaden book was failing to work I noticed Lukas increasing frequency and intensity of breezes. Was it Point Given were Lukas mentioned two mile gallops and more frequent, faster breezes? This transition to harder training (as RR perceived it) in the late '90s and early 2000s correlated with a brief resurgence of success for the Lukas stable. And then, from what I could tell, they reverted to former methods and results since then speak the story.

So, without adieu, the Lukas training as reported by Staaden:

"Gallops--what sort of distance and speed do they go? Kiaren McLaughlin said the gallops are a mile to a mile and a half."

How fast do they gallop on gallop days? Lukas: "an average gallop for us is an eight in eighteen (18 sec/f)...a nice open gallop...it might be twenties or it might even be sixteens."

Breezes: "Even though Wayne's horses don't fast work very often, they still don't go very fast"

At what speed do they work? Lukas: "When you see one of our horses break 48 seconds in half mile, a minute in five furlongs or a 1:14 for six furlongs, it's because of one of three things: The horses is a very exceptional horse, the reins broke, or the exercise rider fell off. The fitness I think you can get without hard works. you can instead put a lot of bottom in them and save them a little bit."

"In your training chart, you seem to fast work them fairly infrequently" Lukas: "I never fast work them. In other words, we don't let our horses work. At five-eights we very seldom break a minute".

Staaden: "I find that amazing." Lukas: "We don't work horses."

How often does Lukas breeze? "We very seldom work under eight days" (Note: the average interval between breezes or races seems to be 9-10 days).

Is there a rationale to this training? Kiaren McLaughlin says it all for these types of trainers: "Why run (work) them every four days if you can get the same result running them every seven days. Why run them 3/4 of a mile when you can get the same result running them a half a mile"

(RR Query--who says you get "the same result"?)

Here is the training chart for Steinlen for the month of June, year unknown. (Important side note: today's Y training follows.)

June 1: W
2: G
3: G
4: J
5: Work 5/8
6: W
7: G
8: J
9: G
10: G
11: W
12: G
13: Work 3/4
14: W
15: J
16: G
17: J
18: G
19: Race 8F Hollywood Stakes
20: W
21: W
22: W
23: J
24: G
25: J
26: G
27: G
28: Work 5/8
29: W
30: G
July 4: Raced 9f Hollywood Stakes

RR might be ok with such a chart on occasion!

Today's Y training:
Tues: 12/26/06 15 min. pasture romp with a few speed bursts
Wed. 12/27/06 10 min easy riderless trot-gallop. bellied.
Thurs. 12/28/06 riderless heats in paddock including several short 2 min lick bursts. Aborted after 7 m as horse is kicked (hard) on point off shoulder. RR is hardly thrilled by this revolting development. Buted. Horse seems to be ok. I've had some horrendous sounding kicks to the shoulder over the years in these paddock gallops. It always sounds and looks way worse than it is. Then, Y is tacked up and ridden, sort of. He again refused to move. Plan would be to walk under tack by Mon.