Upon meeting Lukas, Klein had been at first put off by the slick clothes and fancy car, but quickly found him fascinating because of his fast-talking but brutally honest persona, with enough energy to run the Sun.
Klein said to him, “I didn’t know horse trainers drove such fancy rigs.”
Lukas replied, “I said I wasn’t going to cheat you. I didn’t say I was going to work for nothing.”
“Why should I give you my horses to train?”
Lukas told him a story. “During a race another trainer had a horse get squeezed on the inside rail. The horse got bumped so bad he flipped over the inside rail, landing in a deep puddle of water. The horse drowned. When the horse owner called the trainer to ask how his horse ran that day, he had to say, ‘Not so good, he drowned.’” Lukas laughed and then said, “Mr. Klein I may not be the best trainer in the world…but not one of my horses has ever drowned. I already have more horses in training than any other trainer in the country, and I don’t need more owners. I need the right owners. I mean serious owners that are not afraid to spend real money and try to win the country’s biggest races, like the Derby, and the Breeders’ Cup. I need big boys to think and play big, and I know we can do it, because I’m the leading trainer in the country already. I am a winner, and I will make you money by racing champions, and breeding champions.”
After surviving two coronary bypass operations in his sixties, and after spending millions of dollars on a pro football team with players he couldn’t understand or relate to, Klein was now playing in the thoroughbred fast lane, with the gutsiest trainer in the world. As a former bomber navigator in World War II, he had faced live action from enemy anti-aircraft guns, and fighter pilots. Klein was a gambler at heart. He had gambled his money to buy a pro football team, and he was now investing in the fastest thoroughbreds that could be bought.
He also knew he was running out of time.
That same Sunday, December 27, 1987, during the night, Luis and two of his other backside racetrack buddies from the Lukas barn, Rafael and Ruben, took their two days off and headed their beat up, old, red pick-up truck onto a long road into the desert for their first trip to Las Vegas. They believed in Luis’s undefeated Mamacita after her two stunning victories and were committed to bet on her to win the 1988 Kentucky Derby at the Caesars Palace future book venue.
The race was still five months away, held as always on the first Saturday in May, and Louisville, Kentucky, was 2,000 miles away from Mamacita’s current California stall. But, the odds in future book wagering are affected by how early a wager is made. For instance, you can bet on the possible outcome of a future US Presidential election four years, three years, or even one month before it happens. But if you bet early, when there is more uncertainty as to the eventual result, the odds offered are fixed dramatically higher than they are just before the event. For Luis and friends, Winning Colors still was an unlikely long shot to even run in the Derby against the best males in the country, and if she didn’t run in, and win the Derby, their future bet money would not be refunded. Luis didn’t care, and he told his buddies, “Amigos, I will take care of her like she belongs to me. Do not worry.”
They thought he was perhaps just a little loco, but he was so passionate in his belief in her ability, they couldn’t say no. Luis watched her every day train alongside other top racehorses, and she always passed them when she pleased, even against the older males.
The friends stayed outside of the Las Vegas Strip at an inexpensive, $39-per-night motel room, sharing one room with two queen beds. Their average day’s pay at the barn was less than $50 each, but Klein had handed Luis a $500 tip after her race that day and told him to share it with the other stablehands who’d worked with Winning Colors. That $500 and all the other money they could scrape together was stuck in Luis’s boot. That night they ate at an inexpensive Mexican restaurant and took two six-packs of beer to the small pool outside their room, where they sat up until two a.m. listening to Latin music and getting buzzed. They could see the glimmering lights of the Strip a mile away in the cold, windy, desert winter night but could not afford to get involved with the gambling, girls, and other attractions.
“We are a long way from home, my friends,” Luis said to his work buddies.
Rafael asked, “Where is home? Are you glad you left Mexico, amigo?”
Luis replied, “Home is here…and there too. Of course, I am glad…and thankful. Tonight my children are safe…and fed…and warm, with their mother.”
Rafael said, “You have to get up every day at three a.m. and work. Lukas is a ball buster. He sent me home because I was dressed too dirty. Then I clean up after his horses.”
“Remember when we didn’t have work? I’m happy to work. Lukas is a pain in the ass sometimes…but he works hard, too. Like he never sleeps. Let’s get my filly home in the Derby, amigos…then I will buy a house for my niños and Mariana…with a pool!”
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