- His method is to fill a network of stables across the country and run as many horses as possible in as many races as possible, so as to raise his chances of winning. Few of his horses are seen to run after the intensive races of their second and third years.
- On December 15, 1993, Lukas's son and top assistant, Jeff, was trampled by a colt named Tabasco Cat in the stable area at Santa Anita Racetrack. Jeff suffered severe head injuries and lapsed into a coma, though he later recovered. Tabasco Cat went on to win the 1994 Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes, the last two races of the Triple Crown.
- In the 1993 Preakness Stakes, Lukas's horse, Union City, broke its ankle midway through the race and had to be destroyed with an injection. Lukas was vilified by racing reporters, many of whom declared he had run an unfit horse to pull himself out of a financial hole.
- Lukas's favorite filly, Landaluce, looked to become the first two-year-old since Secretariat to be named Horse of the Year, but contracted a mysterious virus and died in Lukas's arms, in 1982.
- In April 1977, one of his horses, Moving Moon, tested positive for the drug Numorphan. Lukas was suspended from racing for 60 days and put on probation until the end of the year.
- American horse trainer, former basketball coach, and business executive who holds almost all records for career wins and earnings as a thoroughbred trainer.
- Inducted in the United States' Racing Hall of Fame in 1999.
- Inducted in the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2007.
- D. Wayne Lukas became the first thoroughbred trainer to win six consecutive Triple Crown races.
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