RACING
CROSS TRAINING Thoroughbreds, Standardbreds and Quarter Horses may be breeds apart, but they are not exclusionary. Three of Thoroughbred racing’s most successful trainers – D. Wayne Lukas, Bob Baffert, and Chad Brown – began their careers with other breeds. Other trainers and even owners and breeders have switched breeds with little fanfare. All of them shared a similar journey out of their comfort zone.
WORDS: BILL HELLER PHOTOS: AmERIcAn QuARTERHORSE JOuRnAL, LAuRA DOnnELL, HORSEPHOTOS, uS TROTTIng SOcIETy, RILLITO DOWnS, yOnkERS RAcEWAy
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ALL of Fame jockey Ron Turcotte and the late legendary Hall of Fame harness driver/ trainer Billy Haughton enjoyed learning about each other’s breed when they were neighbors and became friends in Oyster Bay, Long Island, in the ‘70s. “We’d discuss the great horses he drove and the ones I rode,” Turcotte said in late December.
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Haughton owned dozens of Thoroughbreds and knew Hall of Fame Thoroughbred trainers John Nerud, LeRoy Jolley, Horatio Luro, and Ed Neloy, who trained Haughton’s Thoroughbreds in New York. Though Turcotte is no relation to the Turcotte harness racing family from Canada – Ted Turcotte was one of six brothers in a family of 15 who drove horses – he said, “I know a little bit about Standardbreds.” Turcotte admired Haughton, as well
as two other harness racing immortals he knew, Stanley Dancer and Del Miller, as complete horsemen. “They do everything from the ground up,” Turcotte said. “They care for horses, train them, and drive them. They know from A to Z about horses.” People say the same thing about Lukas. Still going strongly at the age of 80, Darrell Wayne Lukas earned a master’s degree in education at the University of Wisconsin, where he was an assistant basketball coach