Stevens purchases Lukas’ house near Oaklawn
Oaklawn Park is getting ready to open its 2025-2026 split-season, and that means there will be a lot of Kentuckians featured in publicist Robert Yates barn notes. Here are some from recent days (photo above of Gary Stevens in his new Hot Springs, Ark., home formerly owned by his close friend D. Wayne Lukas. Courtsey Gary Stevens)
Stevens makes a house call
Gary Stevens, the retired Hall of Fame jockey turned jockey agent, said he has purchased a home near Oaklawn previously owned by the late Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas and his wife, Laurie.
“Laurie wanted me to have it,” Stevens said. “She said she had some other offers and she said: ‘You need to be in that house.’ She made it happen.”
Stevens said the house is more than 80 years old, adding it’s “very homey, very warm.” Lukas had made Oaklawn his winter base since 2007, eventually purchasing a home in Hot Springs. He died June 28 at the age of 89.
Close friends, Lukas put Stevens on his first Oaklawn winner as a jockey, Tank’s Prospect, in the 1985 G1-Arkansas Derby.
“We flew in on his jet, landed here in Hot Springs, and dropped me off early in the morning, 7:30, 8 o’clock, right on Central, right in front of the grandstand,” said Stevens, then a rising star in Southern California. “I thought, ‘holy cow!’ The track’s sitting right on the main street. I’d never seen anything like it. We got out of this Lincoln Town Car and opened up the trunk. Wayne handed me my tack bag, and he said, ‘Do you like traveling like this?’ I said: ‘I love it.’ He said: ‘If you win today, get used to it.’”
Lukas and Stevens teamed for numerous other major victories, including the 1988 Kentucky Derby (Winning Colors), 1995 Kentucky Derby (Thunder Gulch), 1995 Belmont Stakes (Thunder Gulch), and the 2013 Preakness (Oxbow).
Stevens, as an agent, was an early morning fixture at the Royal Glint barn, Lukas’ longtime Oaklawn home. Lukas was Oaklawn’s leading trainer in 1987 and 2011 and is its eighth-winningest trainer in history with 384 victories.
“They’ll never be another one like him,” Stevens said. “He changed the game. He was the first one to start flying horses around. Everybody thought he was nuts having this satellite training, multiple horses at multiple racetracks. He wasn’t afraid to fly in and out. Now, everybody does it.”
Stevens said he will represent newcomer Eswan Flores, Travis Wales and apprentice Amanda Poston during Oaklawn’s 64-day split season that begins Dec. 12.
Oaklawn on target to be Asmussen’s fifth track with 1K wins
Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen will be chasing another milestone when Oaklawn’s 64-day split season begins Dec. 12.
Asmussen enters 2025-2026 with a record 993 career Oaklawn victories. Asmussen, North America’s all-time winningest trainer, has already reached 1,000 career victories at four tracks. Asmussen has 1,666 victories at Lone Star Park, 1,361 at Remington Park, 1,170 at Fair Grounds and 1,032 at Sam Houston Race Park, according to Equibase, racing’s official data gathering organization.
“Me and another milestone – love them,” Asmussen said Tuesday morning. “I’m seven away? Knowing how I start out, that ought to be about February.”
Asmussen owns every major Oaklawn training record, including career purse earnings ($63.9 million), career stakes victories (123), single-season purse earnings ($6,685,459 in 2023-2024), and single-season stakes victories (11 in 2023-2024). Asmussen equaled the late Cole Norman’s single-season Oaklawn record for victories (71) in 2023-2024.
Asmussen won 46 races last season at Oaklawn en route to his record-extending 14th meet title. Asmussen was also Oaklawn’s leading trainer in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2021-2022.
Asmussen became the first trainer to reach 10,000 career North American victories when he saddled Bet He’s Ready to win the fifth race Feb. 20, 2023, at Oaklawn. Asmussen’s first Oaklawn victory was on Feb. 9, 1996.
Asmussen has 11,057 career North American victories, according to Equibase.
Lukas, Cella to be inducted into Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame
Oaklawn’s presence in the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame continues to grow.
A year after hosting the induction ceremony for the first time, two of the most prominent figures in Oaklawn history, executive Louis Cella and the late trainer D. Wayne Lukas, will be part of its 2026 class, the ASHOF’s 68th overall.
“How about that?” Cella said Thursday morning. “That was a little shot out of the dark that surprised me, but I was very honored. A little bit over my skis. But when you’re in a category with D. Wayne Lukas, you have to check your pulse and see what the hell is going on.”
Cella has been Oaklawn’s president since December 2017, succeeding his father, Charles Cella, who died earlier that month. Under Louis Cella’s leadership, Oaklawn has become a tourist, entertainment and racing destination after completing a reported $100 million expansion in 2021, highlighted by a 198-room luxury resort hotel that overlooks the track’s first turn and 1,500-seat event center. Additional space for full-fledged casino gaming has pushed Oaklawn’s average daily purse distribution to more than $900,000, highest of any winter track.
Oaklawn has been owned by the Cella family for more than 100 years. Charles Cella, who became Oaklawn’s president in 1968, was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.
Lukas was an industry giant.
A 1999 inductee into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, Lukas amassed 4,953 career Thoroughbred victories (the ninth-highest total in North American history), including 15 Triple Crown events. Lukas was Oaklawn’s leading trainer in 1987 and 2011 and is its eighth-winningest trainer in history with 384 victories, the last coming a little more than two months before his death June 28. He was 89.
The ASHOF induction ceremony had been held at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock, Ark., before Oaklawn wrestled the event away in 2025. Cella said he was informed of his selection last week by Steven Riffle, the ASHOF’s new executive director.
“It was fun when I got the call from the executive director,” Cella said. “I said: ‘I’ve been to about 10 of these, but I’ve never been to one at Oaklawn because we started it last year.’ He started laughing and said: ‘I’ve never been to one, either, because I just started three months ago.’ ”
The Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame already includes Kentucky-based jockeys Pat Day and Calvin Borel.
Day (1999), the retired Hall of Fame jockey who is the winningest rider in Oaklawn history (1,264 victories), owns a record 12 Oaklawn riding titles (1983-1994), won nine Triple Crown races, including the 1992 Kentucky Derby aboard Lil E. Tee, and four Eclipse Awards as North America’s outstanding jockey (1984, 1986, 1987 and 1991).
Calvin Borel (2011), the Hall of Fame jockey who was Oaklawn’s leading rider in 1995 and 2001, is its third-winningest rider in history (978 victories) and a three-time Kentucky Derby winner (2007, 2009 and 2010).
The Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony is April 10 in the Oaklawn Event Center.
