REIGNING TRAINER : LUKAS HAS HORSEPOWER.

Byline: Michael Ventre

When D. Wayne Lukas got married for the second time, it was in Kentucky, and not far from a racetrack. He never strays far from a racetrack.

``After the ceremony, my wife said, `Well, what now?' '' recalled the famed trainer. ``I said, `Well, we have to go grass the horses.' ''

So it was off to Churchill Downs to do just that. Then his wife asked about the honeymoon.

The Lukases celebrated their honeymoon at a trainers' association dinner. When the guests found out their colleague had gotten married that day, they were somewhat aghast but not totally surprised.

Despite a slow break from the gate, that marriage is going strong. At the same time, Lukas and his passion for everything equine continues to grow and prosper. Today he is the most famous, the most successful, the most gregarious, the most controversial, the most outspoken, the most recognizable and probably the richest man his profession has ever known.

You would think a man like this could afford a vacation. Or afford the time to take one. Or would want to take one after waking up at 3 every morning, trudging to the track to work his horses and then calling it a workday at 11 a.m. or so. Not Lukas.

``You mean to Europe or something? That would bore me,'' he said this week. ``That's why they have the Discovery Channel.''

Lukas, 60, doesn't belong on a beach in Bali, or in a cabin in Wyoming, or on a raft in white water. He would wither in the wine country, slumber at the ski slopes and go crazy on a cruise.

This man has no other life. He is the track. He is the $2 window, the turf club, the home stretch and the infield.

He is also in the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont, more often than his rivals would like.

The big races are Lukas' bailiwick. He has won five Triple Crown races in a row, and on May 4 he will try to push that to six with as many as five horses entered in the year's Kentucky Derby.

Two of those contenders - Honour And Glory and Prince of Thieves - will run Saturday in the Santa Anita Derby. In other Kentucky Derby preps, Lukas will have Editor's Note in the Blue Grass and Grindstone in the Arkansas Derby, along with Victory Speech, which is ready now.

Don't be shocked if someday you see the Kentucky Derby field as one big entry, from 1a to 1z, all trained by D. Wayne Lukas.

``The streak doesn't mean that much to me,'' he said. ``It is secondary, because I'm much more interested in winning the (Kentucky) Derby. I can tell they're (media) gonna make a lot of it. Maybe it'll mean more to me if we do it.''

Kentucky is where Lukas belongs. He goes there about three weeks before Derby day; gets a spartan motel room near Churchill Downs; avoids downtown Louisville as if it contained an airborne virus; frequents the local doughnut shops and convenience store, where he has come to know the locals, and drinks in the atmosphere and energy of the cool early mornings on the storied dirt oval.

The former basketball coach also makes sure he steps into Wildcat country with his allegiance firmly stated. A close friend of Indiana basketball coach Bob Knight, Lukas says he comes off the plane wearing an IU hat and an IU shirt.

Since he is also a good friend of Rick Pitino - indeed, he has trained horses for Pitino, as well as Louisville coach Denny Crum and former Cal legend Pete Newell - he makes sure to mix in some blue-and-white in his wardrobe while on Kentucky soil to avoid riling the faithful.

Basketball and racing are inextricably linked in Kentucky but perhaps even more so in Lukas' life. He felt that if everything fell correctly, he could today be the head basketball coach at the University of Michigan. And with his powers of persuasion and an emphasis on positive thinking, he is certain he could have recruited with the best of them.

Instead, an avocation became a vocation. Horse racing slowly consumed his life. After 11 years as a coach in Wisconsin - nine at the high school level and two as an assistant at the University of Wisconsin, his alma mater - he became a full-time trainer in 1966.

At first, it was quarter-horses, but soon he switched to thoroughbreds. Today he estimates he has about 150 horses training under the Lukas name, with 163 employees working for him.

Now, when he chats with Knight and Pitino and men of their ilk, it is usually about racing and not basketball.

``I try to pull them into my world,'' he said.

His world is at least equal and probably grander than theirs. While Knight and Pitino and Crum can point to their rings, Lukas has a resume that would rival John Wooden for sheer dominance of a sport. He has won a record 19 million-dollar races in his career and has trained a record 18 Eclipse award-winning horses.

So why is he so reluctant to leave the dirt, the hay, the gentle aroma of horse cookies and the early wake-up calls to splurge on himself a bit?

Well, he did once. Shortly after his first marriage ended in divorce, he left the track one day wearing his earthy barn clothes and headed over to Beverly Hills Jed Clampett-style to a Rolls Royce dealership. He picked out a beauty with a $112,000 price tag and assured a skeptical salesman that an aide would be by later to give him a check. That was 1982. He still has the car.

``It only has about 29,000 miles on it,'' he said.

Proving once again that D. Wayne Lukas never has to drive far to get to the racetrack.

MEMO: Michael Ventre's column appears in the Daily News four days a week.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1--color) Trainer D. Wayne Lukas, shown here with Serena's Song at Churchill Downs, seldom strays far from a racetrack or takes a vacation.

Associated Press

(2) D. WAYNE LUKAS

The celebrated trainertook his bride to a trainers' association affair on his wedding night.