GOLDEN GLIMPSES #380

September 4, 2001

By ED GOLDEN

�OTHER� D. WAYNE ALSO HAS PASSION FOR RACING

The biography of D. Wayne Lukas and his accomplishments fills four pages in Hollywood Park�s media guide.

D. Wayne Baker gets one line: birth date, Aug. 21, 1959.

Lukas is thoroughbred racing�s all-time leader among trainers in purse money won, with more than $220 million, so the space is justified. Baker was thrilled when he won a couple of stakes races back in 1999.

Baker is the first to admit there�s not much similarity between the two trainers aside from their names. But they do have more in common than that. Each has a passion for his profession.

Horses have been in Baker�s blood since he was a child.

"My dad owned race horses and I took it from there," says David Wayne Baker, 42, not to be mistaken for Darrell Wayne Lukas, who turned 66 on Sept. 2. "When I was a kid, I always had show jumpers and went to horse shows."

That was in his native England, where Baker was brought up in a tiny village before he emigrated to California about 25 years ago. Before becoming a trainer, he was a jockey, riding in New York, Maryland and New Mexico.

These days, Baker has about 14 horses and trains out of San Luis Rey Downs.

He loves it.

"It�s nice and quiet and the horses relax there," Baker says of the training facility 31 miles north of Del Mar. "It�s just an hour and a half commute to Santa Anita, but I have a barn at Santa Anita, too. Coming in from San Luis Rey isn�t bad. I usually bring the horses in a day before they�re scheduled to race. They all seem to ship fine."

When Baker isn�t training horses, he devotes time to his hobby: show-jumping horses. "I have two of them and they�re in training with a lady called Julie Taylor at her Fairbrook Farm in Fallbrook. I do that in my spare time," Baker said, half-smiling, because training thoroughbreds consumes most of his time.

Baker shows no partiality to his stock. "All my horses are my favorites," he says. "I don�t have any Kentucky Derby horses yet--soon, I hope. I�m very proud of the fact that my horses on the whole stay real sound. I�ve had horses in the barn for three-four years, and they�re still running."

As is David Wayne Baker, who, like Lukas, goes by the name of Wayne.

"My grandfather was the only one who called me David," said Baker. "He did that until I was 16, so I thought I�d better stick that name in there somewhere."

THE HOMESTRETCH: The decision to retire Point Given due to a strain of his left front leg leaves racing with a void it can ill afford. At a time when the game sorely needs a superstar, it will take more than bobblehead doll giveaways, free T-shirts and guaranteed Pick Sixes to generate interest for an industry which failed to keep pace with its competition four decades ago. When rival sports jumped aboard the TV bandwagon back then, horse racing hoarded its product and has been trying to catch up and been paying the price ever since. Point Given is already a lock for Horse of the Year, but as of Sunday morning, trainer Bob Baffert said that "nobody knows" where the son of Thunder Gulch will stand at stud. Word on that should be imminent, and the stud fee, understandably, is likely to run into six figures. Fans at Del Mar will get their last look at Point Given when he is paraded between races on Wednesday, closing day . . . One of D. Wayne Baker�s clients is Ron Gomez, an owner whose silks are white with one red and two black chevron hoops. "Ron says he chose chevrons because there are so many ups and downs in this business," Baker says . . John Toffan, co-owner of Came Home, on why the colt ran in (and won by two lengths) Belmont�s Hopeful instead of Wednesday�s Del Mar Futurity against Baffert�s second coming of Secretariat, Officer: "We had our options," Toffan said. "We thought the Hopeful might come up easier than the Del Mar Futurity. Besides, the Hopeful is a Grade I and the Futurity is a Grade II." Toffan said he is "all for" home account wagering, which becomes law in California on Jan. 1. "We had to do something. I know the tracks are concerned because they think it�s going to decrease their (on-track) attendance, but in the long run it probably will increase attendance. But it�s certainly going to increase the handle." . . . In a long overdue move, California will have 12 fewer thoroughbred dates on its 2002 calendar. Among changes approved by the California Horse Racing Board is elimination of six-day racing weeks, except at Del Mar . . . A few months after Laffit Pincay Jr. had broken Bill Shoemaker�s career record for wins at 8,834 on Dec. 10, 1999, trainer Bill Spawr half-jokingly said he wouldn�t be surprised if Pincay would one day win 10,000. Pincay recently reached 9,200, and now Spawr says 10,000 is a realistic goal. "I think he can do it," said Spawr, who has remained loyal to the 54-year-old rider when other horsemen spurned him for younger jockeys. "The man�s unbelievable. When he gets to 10,000, we�ll say, �How far is he going to go?�"

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