Peb Collection Stirs Memories of the 1995 Triple Crown

It is a week after the Breeders’ Cup, so why are we writing about the 1995 Triple Crown? Well, first off, it is to spread the word about a collection of artwork by the Hall of Fame artist/caricaturist Peb depicting Wayne Lukas and his trio of stars from that year’s Triple Crown trail — colts Thunder Gulch and Timber Country and Hall of Fame filly Serena’s Song. The original pieces, consisting of pen and ink sketches and water colors, will be sold at the Sporting Art Auction on November 13. This year also happens to be the 30th anniversary of that memorable Triple Crown, which was was filled with drama, human interest stories, and a touch of the ethereal. ~ Steve Haskin

Peb Collection Stirs Memories of the 1995 Triple Crown

By Steve Haskin

“Chez Lukas” by Pierre “Peb” Bellocq, original work available in the 2025 Sporting Art Auction.

 

On the surface, the Triple Crown races back in the early to mid-90s were for the most part uneventful, but looking back, 1995 was a memorable year in horse racing, as it was the beginning of a rebirth of sorts, with the great D. Wayne Lukas regaining his total dominance of the sport following several lean years and his historic Triple Crown winning streak, the return of Lukas’ son Jeff, who nearly lost his life after a horrific accident on the Santa Anita backstretch in 1994. It also marked the transformation of former grass horse Cigar into one of the all-time great dirt horses, who would go on to record one of the longest winning streaks in history with 16 consecutive victories in ’95 and ’96, including the inaugural running of the Dubai World Cup.

Right around the corner would come the introduction to the Triple Crown of a California sprint trainer named Bob Baffert, who took racing by storm in 1996, and would go on to change the face of the sport. From his nose defeat with the Cal-bred Cavonnier in the 1996 Kentucky Derby came three Kentucky Derby winners, three Preakness winners, and a Belmont winner from 1997 to 2002.

But let’s back up a little to the spring of 1995 and the renaissance of the Triple Crown. Wayne Lukas, who dominated racing for a decade, had gone an amazing 2 1/2 years without a Grade 1 winner, and winning only four graded stakes, three of them Grade 3, in 1993. During that time he was faced with the ordeal of seeing his son, and main assistant, Jeff, suffer a severe brain injury in December, 1993, when the 2-year-old Tabasco Cat got loose from his handler and ran over him, putting him in a coma for nearly a month, while listed in critical condition.

Jeff survived, and the following May, Lukas finally ended his losing streak when, of all horses, Tabasco Cat won the Preakness and then the Belmont. Not only was the king back atop his throne, he continued the greatest winning streak ever by a trainer when he swept the Triple Crown in 1995 with Thunder Gulch in the Derby, 2-year-old champion Timber Country in the Preakness, and Thunder Gulch in the Belmont. When he captured the 1996 Derby with Grindstone it gave him a remarkable six consecutive Triple Crown victories. After losing the Preakness he won the Belmont with Editor’s Note for his seventh Triple Crown victory in eight tries..

Right smack in the middle of this extraordinary run was the 1995 Triple Crown, as were the victories of his star filly Serena’s Song, who ran in the Derby after defeating the boys in the Jim Beam Stakes, and then romped in the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes on Preakness weekend and the Mother Goose Stakes on Belmont weekend.

Going into the ’95 Triple Crown, the big horse in the stable, Timber Country, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile in ’84, had been a disappointment in California,  finishing third in the San Rafael, second in the San Felipe, and fourth in the Santa Anita Derby, even though he was beaten a total of only 4 1/4 lengths in those three races. Meanwhile, back east, Thunder Gulch, winner of the Remsen Stakes at 2, managed to eke out a neck victory in the Fountain of Youth Stakes and a nose victory in the Florida Derby, both times beating the Nick Zito-trained Suave Prospect. But when Thunder Gulch finished fourth, beaten 4 1/2 lengths by a 30-1 shot as the 6-5 favorite in the Blue Grass Stakes, he quickly fell out of favor. Derby horses back then rarely, if ever, finished out of the money and came back to win the Derby.

It actually looked as if Lukas’ main Derby threat was his filly Serena’s Song, who had already run 14 times and came within a nose of being named 2-year-old filly champion when she lost a gut-wrenching stretch duel with her stablemate Flanders in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. But the daughter of Rahy rebounded with four consecutive stakes victories under Corey Nakatani, three of them in the Grade 1 Hollywood Starlet, Las Virgenes Stakes and Santa Anita Oaks.

With the Kentucky Derby and not the Oaks in the back of Lukas’ mind, he decided to run her against the colts in the Grade 2 Jim Beam Stakes at Turfway Park. When she easily wired her field by 3 1/2 lengths beating Tejano Run, winner of the Breeders Futurity and Kentucky Cup Juvenile at 2, she not only earned her way into the Derby, she took over as the horse to beat among the three Lukas contenders.

With Pat Day, who rode Thunder Gulch in the Blue Grass, committed to Timber Country and Mike Smith, who rode Thunder Gulch to victory in the Fountain of Youth and Florida Derby, deciding to ride his Wood Memorial and Gotham winner Talkin Man, Lukas sent out a call to Gary Stevens, who was riding in Hong Kong, to come back and ride Thunder Gulch, on whom he had won the Remsen the previous fall.

Stevens was not about to turn down a Derby ride, especially from Lukas, and he agreed. It was Stevens who gave Lukas his first Derby win when he guided Winning Colors home in 1988. But something happened Derby week that caused Stevens great heartache and left him in despair right before the Derby. His close friend of 15 years, publicist Mark Kaufman, who helped boost Stevens’ career when he was publicity director at Longacres in Washington, died suddenly of a heart attack at age 47 shortly after leaving the Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders dinner the Tuesday before the Derby. It was Kaufman who was instrumental in Stevens leaving Longacres and going to Southern California, where he became in instant sensation.

On the eve of the Derby, Stevens sent a message to Kaufman’s wife Molly, assuring her that he was going to have a “special passenger with me tomorrow.”  While the Serena’s Song and Timber Country entry was made the 3-1 favorite, Thunder Gulch was sent off at an insane 24-1, despite his two big wins at Gulfstream. Back then, the outside posts were considered the kiss of death, and when Thunder Gulch drew post 16, just about everyone deserted him coming off his uninspired Blue Grass effort.

Serena’s Song took the early lead and set blazing fractions of :45 4/5 and 1:10 1/5 before tiring badly after turning for home. Timber Country was way back in 11th at the quarter pole and looked out of it. But Stevens, with his “passenger” aboard with him, stormed to the front approaching the eighth pole and drew clear to win by 2 1/4 lengths, with Timber Country closing fastest of all, but missing second by head behind Tejano Run, who Serena’s Song had defeated in the Jim Beam the race before.

As Stevens crossed the finish line, he pointed his finger toward the heavens and shouted, “This is for you, Mark!” After the race, Stevens wasted no time in calling Molly at her home in Mercer Island, Washington to tell her that Mark was with him all the way.

“What Gary did was so special and so wonderful, and so spontaneous, there are no words to describe it,” an emptionallly exhausted Molly said later that night. “The Derby is so much a part of me and Mark, I felt I had to watch it. It made me cry and it made me happy to know how much Mark was loved, and I truly believe his spirit was right there with Gary.”

As if the Derby gods weren’t smiling down enough on Thunder Gulch, it was Jeff Lukas who gave Stevens a leg up on the colt, just as he did with Winning Colors seven years earlier. Jeff was unable to attend the ’94 Triple Crown race, as he was still recovering from his near-fatal accident.

“I was legging up Timber Country and Serena’s Song and I saw Jeff standing there looking at me,” Wayne Lukas said. “I told him to throw Gary up. As I watched him I thought it was kind of an omen, since it was Jeff who had Winning Colors all winter and legged Gary up on her up in the Derby.”

After the Derby, even with Thunder Gulch a convincing winner, there still was the question of who was Lukas’ best colt.

It was now on to Pimlico for the Preakness, with Lukas looking for his fourth consecutive victory in a Triple Crown race. Feeling Serena’s Song needed a confidence builder after her Derby debacle, Lukas ran her in the Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan Stakes the day before with Gary Stevens aboard, and she showed her ability to bounce back by romping to a nine-length victory in a brilliant 1:48 2/5 for the 1 1/8 miles, earning a whopping 113 Beyer speed figure, which turned out to be six points higher than the Preakness.

Next it was the colts’ turn. Before leaving Kentucky, exercise rider Joanne McNamara had begun getting more and more confident this was going to be Timber Country’s shining moment, especially after the colt had turned in a sparkling :59 4/5 work for five furlongs at Churchill Downs, flying home his final eighth in :11 1/5.

“I was working a horse in company with him,” McNamara said, “and when he came alongside me and Pat chirped to him, I looked over to him and said, ‘So long.’ He just left me so fast. He’s actually gotten more aggressive, like the Derby really pumped him up. The next day he was a monster walking around the shedrow.”

Despite his emphatic Derby score, Thunder Gulch still was given little respect, going off as the 7-2 second choice behind Timber Country at 9-5. After four tough defeats, this possibly was Pat Day’s final chance to guide this gentle giant through harm’s way and into the winner’s circle. Unlike Thunder Gulch, a tough and gritty little bulldog of a horse, Timber Country was a big powerful colt who just wasn’t able to get things to fall his way at 3. Lukas had given Thunder Gulch’s owner Michael Tabor his big victory, and although the Triple Crown was definitely on his mind, he also wanted Timber Country’s owners, William T. Young, Graham Beck, and Robert and Beverly Lewis to share in the glory.

“I gave Pat my best Vince Lombardi speech after the fifth race,” Lukas said. “I got him and Gary up to the jock’s room and played some ‘Rocky’ tapes. But seriously, I told Pat, “You’re riding the 2-year-old champion. We can go through an adjustment, but now it’s time to fish or cut bait with this horse. You just can’t take the 2-year-old champion over there and keep running third. He ran a credible race in the Derby, but we need to get him there today.”

Thunder Gulch, breaking from post 11, which Maryland horsemen felt was far more disadvantageous at Pimlico than an outside post in the Derby, didn’t have as easy a time of it as he did at Churchill Downs, and was having trouble putting the local horse Oliver’s Twist away in the stretch. The latter actually got the best of the Derby winner, but here came Timber Country to save the day, getting up to beat Oliver’s Twist by a half-length, with Thunder Gulch a neck farther back in third. The champ was back and Lukas had run first and third, just as he had in the Derby.

When Timber Country returned after the race, Pat Day reached down and shook Lukas’ hand. “I appreciate you giving me this opportunity,” he said. “I know you had to go to bat for me.”

As the colt was led into the winner’s circle, a beaming Lukas took his rolled up program and gave Timber Country a friendly tap on his butt. He was particularly happy for Bill Young, one of his newest clients, who had brought his 15-year-old granddaughter Meade with him.

My wife couldn’t come today so I brought my granddaughter instead, and that made this so thrilling for me,” Young said. “I had her stand right with me, and she’ll remember this for the rest of her life.”

Back at the barn, as the sun set on Old Hilltop, Lukas popped several bottles of champagne, while his wife Shari cut into a cake presented to them by Pimlico.

So, having won the first two legs of the Triple Crown with two different horses, it was now time for the rubber match in the 1 1/2-mile Belmont Stakes, with Timber Country once again the star of the barn. All three horses returned to Churchill Downs to train. I also returned to Kentucky after Lukas was kind enough to allow me to fly with the horses to New York, something I had never done before.

Here I was boarding the Tex Sutton plane with the greatest trainer in the country and some of the most valuable horses in the world, including the Derby winner, the Preakness winner, and the Black-Eyed Susan winner, who was headed for the Grade 1 Mother Goose Stakes the day before the Belmont. I was given a tutorial in equine air travel by several Tex Sutton handlers shortly after the horses were loaded and spent a good deal of time during the flight sitting with Lukas on one of the tack boxes in the front of the plane, as he reflected on everything that had happened over the past tumultuous year and a half. Lukas actually had five horses aboard, with multiple stakes winner Cat Appeal and the promising 2-year-old filly Miraloma also making the trip.

I was closest to Thunder Gulch, who never turned a hair and attempted to doze off on occasion. He had been doing everything right all week and was calm and relaxed when he was supposed to be and on the muscle when he was supposed to be. After landing in New York, I thanked Lukas and hopped on the van with his horses. As we made our way through the streets of Elmont, Shon McLain, Lukas’ jack-of-all trades, who knew these horses, especially Thunder Gulch, as well as anyone, dropped a bit of bombshell regarding Thunder Gulch, when he unequivocally stated,  “I’m telling you, that’s your Belmont winner. I’m with this horse 15 hours a day, and you wouldn’t believe the difference in him. He’s doing better now than he’s ever done in his life.”

But that bombshell was nothing compared to the one the day before the Belmont when it was announced Timber Country had a virus and a 104-degree temperature and obviously was out of the Belmont. That left it all up to Thunder Gulch. Later that same day, Serena’s Song came through again, winning the Mother Goose Stakes by three lengths after battling head and head for the lead the whole way.

Thunder Gulch was made ther 3-2 favorite in the Belmont. Lukas, as stoic as ever, stood unobtrusively in the rear of the box area watching the race unfold, as Thunder Gulch stalked a ridiculously slow pace of :50 1/5 and 1:15 for three-quarters in the 11-horse field. It took the chestnut colt a while before he was able to assert himself and wrest command inside the eighth pole, drawing clear to score by two lengths over the Nick Zito-trained Star Standard.

Lukas showed little emotion other than slapping his hand with the program, but as he headed down to the track he was greeted with a thunderous ovation from the normally phlegmatic and often cynical New York crowd, who knew his story and could appreciate his feat of winning five consecutive Triple Crown races with three different horses. The wall of noise around him then was hushed momentarily when he entered the glass-enclosed stairway leading down to the tunnel and winner’s circle. That’s when the magnitude of what he had accomplished finally hit him.

His voice actually began to quaver as he said, “Boy, this was more emotional than I thought it would be. It’s starting to get to me. I have to try to regain my composure.” When he returned to the barn, Thunder Gulch was on the grass and dragging around McLain and McNamara. Lukas walked over and asked, “How is  Mighty Mouse?”

So ended the 1995 Triple Crown. Timber Country sadly would never race again, suffering a tendon injury that would end his career. But he did make history by becoming the first Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner to win a Triple Crown race. He was sent to Japan and died in 2016 from heart failure.

Thunder Gulch, who after competing in eight graded stakes at seven different tracks in a six and a half month period, actually got stronger as the year went on, winning the Swaps Stakes at Hollywood Park, the Travers Stakes at Saratoga, and the Kentucky Cup Classic against older horses at Turfway Park. He then faced Cigar, undefeated in 1995, in a much-anticipated showdown in The Jockey Club Gold Cup, but finished a well-beaten fifth, after which it was discovered he had suffered a fractured cannon bone. Retired to Ashford Stud, he sired Hall of Famer Point Given among other major stakes winners, and was the broodmare sire of Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Bayern. He was euthanized in 2018 at age 26 due to the infirmities of old age.

As for Serena’s Song, she would go on to a long productive Hall of Fame career, winning 18 of her 38 starts, finishing first or second 29 times and earning over $3.2 million, while winning 17 graded stakes, 11 of them Grade 1. In addition to her victory in the Grade 2 Jim Beam Stakes, she defeated colts in the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational and was beaten a neck in the Grade 1 Whitney, giving eight pounds on the scale to the winner Mahogony Hall, who had placed in the Suburban, Brooklyn, Gulfstream Park Handicap, Blue Grass Stakes, and Saratoga Cup.

In her career, in which she was voted champion 3-year-old filly, she recorded an amazing 24 triple-digit Beyer speed figures. Reunited with Gary Stevens following the Kentucky Derby, she would finish first or second in 14 of their 17 starts, with their only out-of-the-money finishes coming in the Santa Anita Handicap and the Breeders’ Cup Distaff on a muddy track.

Although she was defeated in her last seven starts, six of them were second-place finishes with one third. Four of those seconds were by less than a length and another by 1 1/2 lengths. In addition to her neck defeat in the Whitney and a third to Smart Strike in the Grade 1 Iselin, she finished second twice to champion Jewel Princess and second twice to champion Yanks Music during those last seven starts.

Retired to Denali Stud, she was an amazing broodmare, producing six stakes winners. She was pensioned from stud duties in 2014 and on April 4, 2025 she celebrated her actual 33rd birthday. She was and still is as tough as they come.

And of course we lost Wayne Lukas earlier this year on June 28, two months before his 90th birthday. And he was still going strong, winning the 2024 Preakness Stakes with Seize the Grey and the 2025 Virginia Derby with American Promise. In all, his horses won 25 Eclipse Awards, 15 Triple Crown races, and 20 Breeders’ Cup races, a record that was only surpassed this year by Aidan O’Brien and Bob Baffert. But you can bet his six consecutive victories in Triple Crown races will never be equaled.

If you wish to relive Lukas’ memorable 1995 Triple Crown season and the careers of these three gifted horses through the eyes of the incomparable Peb, check out his artistry at thesportingartauction.com, lot #121.

 

Title art courtesy of  Pierre “Peb” Bellocq and the Sporting Art Auction. Photos by Kip Hannen & Roberta Weiser, Stan Denny/Courier Journal and Gainesway Farm, and Denali Stud.

Racing historian, author, and award-winning retired journalist for the Daily Racing Form and The Blood-Horse, Steve Haskin was inducted into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame’s Media Roll of Honor in 2016. Known for his racing knowledge and insightful prose, he has been an exclusive contributor to Secretariat.com since 2020.