Since winning with his first Preakness starter, Codex, in 1980, the 77-year-old Hall of Famer has made Pimlico a regular stop on the Triple Crown trail.

            No trainer has started more horses in the Preakness since 1909 than Lukas, who has sent 37 to the post in 25 trips to Baltimore including Optimizer, who was sixth of 11 in 2012. In addition to Codex, he won with Tank’s Prospect in 1985, Tabasco Cat in 1994, Timber Country in 1995, and Charismatic in 1999.

            Lukas grew up on a 10-acre farm a few miles from Antigo, Wis., an agricultural community of about 8,600. A former high school and college basketball coach, he settled in California in 1972 and dominated the quarter-horse game until turning his full-time attention to thoroughbreds six years later.

            What has followed is a career unparalleled by any trainer in history. He pioneered the concept of maintaining strings at several tracks around the country, and has trained 24 horses to 29 year-end championships, including Horse of the Year in 1990 (Criminal Type), 1996 (Lady’s Secret) and 1999 (Charismatic).

            A four-time Eclipse Award winner as top trainer, he has won 13 Triple Crown races and 18 Breeders’ Cup races. In 1995 became the first trainer to win all three legs with two different horses, Thunder Gulch and Timber Country, and won six straight Triple Crown races from the 1994 Preakness to the 1996 Kentucky Derby.

Lukas led the country in purses earned all but one year between 1983 and 1997, and became the first trainer in history to reach $200 million in career earnings, in 1999. That year, he was also inducted into the Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.