The Greatest Gambling Story Ever Told

by Mark Paul

  She grunted loudly and violently threw her head to the side, pulling her handler completely off his feet as he was trying to hold on to the bridle of this huge and spirited animal. The bidding on her opened at $100,000 and Klein told Lukas to go to $250,000. When the bid reached $300,000, Klein gave Lukas the signal to keep going, $350,000, $400,000, then $500,000 and finally to $575,000. Lukas had told Klein she was Lukas’s top-rated filly in the entire sale and both men were ecstatically high-fiving each other when the gavel fell. The purchase of Winning Colors ended their auction and Klein sprinted out of the pavilion to call his wife Joyce, excited to tell her about the last filly they had just bought for $575,000 by outbidding the oil money rich Arabs.

  Joyce asked, “How much did you pay for an unraced 1-year-old filly?”

  “Five hundred seventy-five thousand,” Klein said, and then paused. “Yes, honey, we went way over budget…but hell, buying horses was your idea. I want you to be happy!”

  Young 2-year-old thoroughbred fillies don’t have testosterone running through their veins making them big and often stupid like their brothers. Just walking down the shed row, colts will prove they are born different than their sisters. They dart their heads out of their stalls to play by biting faces, hands, or any other extremity within reach. Their sisters usually nuzzle up to their grooms and handlers, playfully prodding to get more carrots or just to get rubs and affection.

  Winning Colors was different. She would physically intimidate her grooms and especially the other horses around her, regardless of their sex or age. She was high strung and when someone tried to put a halter on her, she would rear back and threaten to kill them. Eventually her handlers learned to put on the halter disassembled, and then put it back together after it was slipped over her head.

  As she aged, Winning Colors filled in with even more muscle. She was so tall, seasoned horsemen in the barn couldn’t believe she wasn’t a grown, older, male racehorse. Now a 2-year-old, Winning Colors looked like a 4-year-old mature, full-grown male.

  Barn of D. Wayne Lukas at Santa Anita Racetrack, May 1986

  In May 1986, Lukas called one of his young grooms, Luis Palos, into his private office. The 25-year-old groom had been with Lukas for two years now and was a smart, hard-working, polite, and quiet young man from Mexico City. Luis came to work on time in clean blue jeans and polished cowboy boots. His jet-black hair was neatly trimmed and combed.

  Luis was worried. He had never been called into señor Lukas’s private office, and feared he was to be let go. He said, “Hola, señor.”

  Lukas shook his hand and looked him straight in the eye for three seconds. “Luis…I like you. I’ve been watching you. You come in early every day. You look sharp and work hard.”

  “Gracias, señor.”

  “I have a filly for you. She’s special. She needs someone like you. I want you to personally take care of her…Winning Colors.”

  Luis smiled. He wasn’t being fired. He’d been chosen to work with the big filly. “Si, I know her. Ella es la gran potra [filly]. Posiblemente…a little…dangerous.”

  Lukas laughed, “Yes, that’s the one. She’s your responsibility now. You take good care of her, Luis…and you can make more money. I need you to travel with her, too. I know you have a wife and three children. Can you go on airplanes with her? You will be going to New York with her soon.”

  “Si, señor. My wife can watch mis niños…no problema.”

  With that, Luis was personally assigned one of the most promising young horses in a stable of over 200 horses. Since Santa Anita racetrack in Southern California was their home base, Luis knew Lukas would check in on him multiple times per day. But he also knew he could advance his career, and one day, perhaps become an assistant trainer and stop having to perform the daily hard manual labor required of a groom. Luis was being paid $6.25 per hour, $2 over minimum wage, to care for a 2-year-old horse now worth over $1,000,000.

  Luis treated her like she belonged to him, even making his wife, Mariana, pack special treats in his lunch pail to give to the filly every day. He was known to have said, “If I don’t bring her food every day she will kill me! Really…. She will kill me!”

  On his first day with Winning Colors, Luis had made the mistake of grabbing her by the ear. She violently threw her head into him, giving him a black eye and bloody lip. Luis learned not to let anyone, ever, touch her ears. He feared for anyone who got too close to her, as they could get hurt, and, injure her in the process. Winning Colors only let Luis touch her anywhere near her head, and the stablehands learned to always have Luis present to calm her down when the veterinarians or blacksmiths came to work on her racing plates (shoes) and hooves.

  He was tender with her, and she learned to trust him. She relaxed when he spoke to her. He nicknamed her Mamacita.

  Luis liked working for Lukas because he loved the horses—but not the hours. At most barns, the day would start early at 4:30 or 5:00 a.m., but for the Lukas barn, it started at 3:30 a.m.

  The other barns would start with the assistant trainers, grooms, and hot walkers trying to get warm around the coffee pot, but the Lukas barn allowed no coffee pot distraction. Lukas had a worker every day that just groomed the ground while following every man, woman, and horse around to rake the footprints into a special, Lukas-selected fan pattern in the dirt. The trainer Willard Proctor had been quoted as saying of Lukas, “I don’t know if he can train a horse…but he sure can landscape.”

  The Lukas barn looked like a Four Seasons Hotel compared to the other barns, always with fresh flowers planted everywhere and D. Wayne Lukas logos all over the stable blankets, trucks, water buckets, flowerpots, horse halters, saddles, t-shirts, hats, and jackets around the barn. His assistant trainers teased Lukas, “Where’s the gift shop?” Lukas would occasionally send stablehands home if they reported to work in dirty clothes. But the men and woman working there knew that like a Special Forces unit of the US Marines, they were the best in the business, and everyone in horseracing knew the Lukas barn was the best in the nation.

  The track’s horses and trainers are typically located behind the tracks and are referred to as backstretch workers. At every racetrack in the nation, these workers are very similar. The tracks have acres and acres filled with hard-working men and women, mostly from Latin American countries like Mexico and Guatemala. The trainers and the owners are the bosses, the horses and the jockeys are the stars, but the labor and skill required to care for the horse population in the backstretch stables falls on the backs of these people.

  Workdays often exceed 12 hours, whether under the blistering sun of Texas, or the freezing cold mornings of New York, or New Jersey. The cleaning of barns, walking mile after mile with the prized horses to cool them down after workouts, feeding, bathing, and caring for the health of each equine athlete requires a staff that has the right expertise. The racehorses are big, powerful, and often unpredictable; only experienced horse people can co-exist with the animals. Nearly every backstretch worker can tell stories of being bitten or kicked. The backstretch workers travel the circuit from racetrack to racetrack throughout the year, leading a nomadic life in often close to poverty conditions that bring their communities into very close friendships.

  A top horse can be worth $5,000,000 or more, but even an above-average thoroughbred at a top track can earn $40,000 or more in prize money per year. The experienced and dependable grooms and workers can be just as important to the success of a fragile racehorse as the trainer, and the staff becomes emotionally attached to the fast, beautiful animals in their care twenty-four hours per day.

  Luis traveled everywhere with Winning Colors. The short trips were easier; cross-country trips were more difficult. After their first flight from Santa Anita to the historic Saratoga racetrack in New York, Luis often stayed with Mamacita in the barn at night, even though he was off the clock. Although he was tending a beloved animal, Luis spent time thinking of his wife and children, 3,000 miles away and in their own beds.

>   The racing calendar has seasons, as the track circuit venues change about every three months. The biggest race meets of the entire year are held at the three spa tracks that are summer retreats for the wealthy: Del Mar racetrack in San Diego, California, Keeneland Racetrack in Lexington, Kentucky, and the famous Saratoga Racetrack, a three-hour drive north of New York City. The most expensive, best-bred horses in the country were all pointed to the top stakes races each summer at these exclusive venues. Winning Colors was ready to make her debut on the Saratoga stage, at the grandest of racetracks, against the best and most expensive young fillies in training.

  August 13, 1987, Saratoga Racetrack, New York

  Before he left California, Luis promised his wife he would stop betting on the horses. She’d noticed his meager take-home pay was often far less than it should be. He hoped Mariana wouldn’t look in the box in the closet where they kept their savings because he’d bet all they had on her on the day Mamacita was making her debut. He told all his fellow workers, “She is the one,” as he’d personally wagered $900.

  The race wouldn’t be easy, as a full field of 11 top young fillies were competing against the tall gray filly. Despite not being the morning line favorite when printed in the race day program, the word was out on her ability, as she had opened in the Saratoga third race betting at 6-1 but was now bet down to the solid fan favorite at just under 2-1. Luis was smiling like a proud father as he led her under halter around the enormous infield paddock in the front of the Saratoga track. Winning Colors’ local jockey, Randy P. Romero, was shocked to see the size of the massive filly when he met her in the saddling area.

  Luis told the jockey, “Just hold on and don’t fall off…she will do the rest, amigo, I promise…and if you fall off, you owe me $900.”

  The other eight well-bred fillies were led to the starting gate for the one-turn, seven- furlong race (each furlong is one-eighth of a mile) adorned in their bright colored racing silks from the stables of other wealthy owners and their top ranked national trainers. Many of the other fillies were sweating in the August New York heat and humidity, but Winning Colors appeared cool and dry.

  On the way to the post, Winning Colors lunged at two other competitors, a game she liked to play. The huge metal starting gate is a frightening beast to young racehorses, but Winning Colors, in her yellow and blue colors, calmly entered stall number three and stood rock still, as the other 10 fillies loaded. When the starting gate bell rang, the gates snapped opened, and Winning Colors nearly pulled Romero’s legs out of the saddle irons with her acceleration. In 10 strides, she was a half-length in front of the field while battling two other well-bred and well-bet fillies sprinting down the backstretch.

  Thoroughbred horseraces are carefully timed into quarter-mile segments. As each quarter of a mile is completed, the elapsed time is posted on the television monitors and on the tote board, located in the center of the track, which also displays the horses’ current betting odds. Each quarter-mile segment is usually run in around 24 seconds, but the first quarter-mile is usually run faster than the later quarter-mile segments of the dirt races, as the horses become tired in the later stages of the race.

  Races are usually run at distances from three-quarters-of-a-mile (one-turn sprints), up to one-and-one-quarter miles (two-turn routes) for races like the Kentucky Derby. Top racehorses can run nearly 40 mph, but don’t go full speed for an entire race as they must reserve their energy for the later parts of the race and hold off the late charging “closers” at the finish. The finish line is often called “the wire,” as a wire runs overhead to assist the photo finish camera. Younger (2- and 3-year-old) racehorses are not nearly as fast as mature racehorses, aged four to seven.

  Female horses of all ages, like humans, usually run several seconds slower than their male counterparts over the course of a race. Winning Colors was proving to be the exception. As a 2-year-old filly, she was now cruising at a blistering 22-and-one-fifth second first quarter-mile pace—a fast pace for a seasoned older horse, and incredibly fast for a 2-year-old female.

  During the race, Romero was trying to reserve her speed and save energy for the long home stretch, known as the Graveyard of Champions. The Saratoga racetrack stretch leading to the finish line is long and tiring to horses, and many a well bet, well regarded, previous champion horse had tired and lost their good lead in the stretch run for home. Winning Colors was flying out on the lead, bounding away from the other fillies with each of her huge strides. She was going full out and entered the left-hand stretch turn one-and-one-half lengths in front, as the other fillies made their charging moves, but she was now hitting her full speed. She’d decisively opened by four lengths over her closest pursuer, exited the turn, and took dead aim for the wire. She darted a bit to her left in the stretch run, nearly scraping the white paint off the inner rail with her gray body. The pursuing jockeys were whipping and yelling encouragement to their fillies, trying to catch the flying Winning Colors, but they were doing so in vain.

  She wasn’t just beating the field; she was embarrassing them. At the finish line 1,000 feet away, Luis was red-faced, jumping up and down, shouting at the top of his lungs, “Go Mamacita! Go Mamacita!”

  Jockey Romero took hold of her near the wire, tucked his unused whip away, having never asked her to fully extend herself. Winning Colors coasted home in front of the second-place horse by nearly three lengths at the wire, with the rest of the field strewn back nearly 20 lengths behind. Luis was running around the track holding his tickets high to the sky and yelling, “Si!...Si!...Si!...Si! Esa es mi chica!”

  Soon there would be $2,700 in the box in the closet of Luis and Mariana Palos.

  August 17, 1987, Rancho Santa Fe, California

  Later in the week after the race, D. Wayne Lukas and Eugene Klein met in San Diego to discuss race plans for Winning Colors as they now knew they had something very special in the tall and feisty filly. They flew her back by private jet and bedded her down back at her home Santa Anita racetrack, 17 miles east of Los Angeles.

  Lukas was not known for patience with horses and was often criticized for running his young horses too often. However, he was being especially patient with his new promising starlet. He chose to wait from August to the end of December to run her again at Santa Anita.

  Top horses can occasionally capture the imagination of the American public the way Seabiscuit, Seattle Slew, or Secretariat did, but the problem is that a horse’s racing career is short. Most top ranked horses today race two to four times at age two, five to eight races at age three, and another five to eight races at age four. Typically, top stakes horses are retired after age four when their breeding value is high, compared to the limited purse income they can win while racing. By the time the horse is a recognized star at age three after winning a Derby or other top high-profile stakes race, the horse probably has less than another 18 months to race before a life of retirement. The horse’s fame is so short-lived that a true fan base cannot be easily developed. A comparative top human athlete such as an NFL quarterback, or Major League Baseball pitcher or hitter, will typically have a 10- to 15-year career playing their sport, but the careers of the four-legged stars are short lived. The animals themselves typically live into their 20s but race only a few years of their lives.

  At the age of 25, jockey Gary Stevens was just three years removed from a coma that left him unconscious for 16 hours after slamming into the Santa Anita rail. It was a frightening training accident that was caught on video in all its gruesome detail. For many months, his speech pattern was impacted. Upon regaining consciousness, he learned that his right knee was nearly destroyed, and his promising career likely was over. Stevens was quoted as saying he did not fear being on a horse’s back and resumed riding in six months. In many ways, the biggest stars in horseracing are the jockeys. Stevens, Idaho born, with boyish good looks and a smile to charm the ladies, was becoming a Southern California favorite among the race fans.

  Jockeys who avoid career-endin
g injuries can race for many decades. This career longevity is made far more difficult because the jockeys, including their saddle, clothing, and whip, must weigh less than 114 pounds on race day. As the jockeys mature, like most humans, they usually thicken and gain weight. Stories of jockeys eating, then purging, are typical for the vocation.

  Bill Shoemaker was still racing strong at 57 years of age, and still an elite rider 45 years into his career. Most of the US top jockeys come from the same Latin American countries as the backstretch workers and are a tough-as-leather, fearless group of mostly men. Stevens was unique among top riders as he was American born. As American as apple pie, Stevens was handsome and easy for US fans to relate to. He began his riding career at age 12 by convincing his dad to put him on quarter-mile sprint racehorses. His older brother Scott was a top jockey and had refused to ride a crazy horse named Little Star because of her history of flipping over and trying to pin the jockeys under her. When Scott refused to ride the crazed animal, Gary stepped up to ride Little Star, and went on to be a leading rider in Seattle. Scott became like a coach for Gary and taught him the nuances of race riding.

  Being a racehorse is dangerous but being the jockey on the horse’s back is far more perilous. Racehorses run at high speeds for short bursts, yet horses’ ankles are smaller than a human’s ankles, and must support the 1,000-pound charging animal. A top, seasoned jockey may race as many as six or eight races per day, five days per week, totaling nearly 1,500 races per year. A rider falls during a thoroughbred race about every 500 rides, so the statistics indicate that an active top jockey will hit the ground about three times per year.

  Stevens had become a leading rider for Lukas by overcoming his traumatic injuries, and because of his talent and hard work. He rode hurt in 1986 and early 1987, still not fully recovered from the Santa Anita accident, but now was finally riding fully fit and healthy. Not yet a star, Stevens was a rising young talent, and was a leading rider at the Southern California race meetings held at Hollywood Park, Del Mar, and Santa Anita. Lukas liked to hire him, and he was a favorite of Klein for his personal stable.