BALTIMORE – Once a coach, always a coach. Whether it be in his days as a high school basketball coach in Wisconsin, or the long list of successful trainers he’s sent out in the world of Thoroughbred racing, D. Wayne Lukas has always gotten enjoyment out of coaching. In Jaime Torres, Lukas saw talent right away. Last Saturday, the 88-year-old trainer and the 25-year-old jockey teamed up for a major victory with Seize the Grey in the $2 million Preakness Stakes at Pimlico. It was the first Grade 1 victory and 147th career win for Torres. For Lukas, it was his seventh Preakness, 15th win in a Triple Crown race, and his 4,930th career victory. In the last two weeks, Torres has won two stakes on Seize the Grey, both with aggressive rides. On May 4, he rode Seize the Grey to victory in the Grade 2 Pat Day Mile at Churchill Downs, and in the Preakness he guided Seize the Grey to a front-running score. But there was a ride Torres gave Lukas well before the Pat Day Mile, on a different horse in a maiden race, that the trainer used as a coachable moment. Lukas felt Torres didn’t try all-out to get a better placing in a maiden race and he let Torres know about it. “You could have easily been fourth with any effort, or maybe third. I said you wrapped up,” recalled Lukas, adding that the difference in purse money between where Torres finished and where he could have finished would have paid a month of training bills for the owner. :: Bet with the Best! Get FREE All-Access PPs and Weekly Cashback when you wager on DRF Bets. “He said, ‘Well, I wanted to save her,’ ” Lukas added. “I said, ‘You use her up, I’ll revive her in the morning. I want you and her both tired.’ ” Lukas said when he saw the way Torres showed up to the barn the next morning, he knew he got the message across. “Coaching,” Lukas said. “That’s been my whole career.” Lukas was first introduced to Torres last summer at Saratoga by his then agent, Angel Cordero Jr., himself a Hall of Fame rider who gave Lukas his first Preakness win 44 years ago aboard Codex. In his first mount at Saratoga, Torres rode Seize the Grey to a maiden victory. Lukas said while he can’t coach a jockey in the mechanics of riding, he can motivate them. “I told him after he rode a couple for me, I’m going to make you better than you want to be,” Lukas said. Torres, a native of Puerto Rico, won 100 races in 2023 and was a finalist for the Eclipse Award for leading apprentice. “I don’t make that decision lightly,” Lukas said about working with young riders. “First of all, I got to feel they are talented and are going to be a good journeyman. Jaime and Keith Asmussen, those guys I’ve been working with, I want those guys that are smart and listen, and they listen. “Jaime made the comment when he won the Pat Day Mile, ‘I heard you in my ear every step of the way,’ ” Lukas said. “They’re listening; where when you put those millionaires on, they’re more concerned where they’re going to eat after the race.” Cordero said he felt Torres had what it took to be successful, but he couldn’t follow him to Kentucky because he had to take care of his 100-year-old mother. “He was very talented as a bug boy.It was just a matter of time and getting him to the right place,” Cordero said. “He’s a good learner, hard worker. He’s got all the tools to become somebody.” :: Subscribe to the DRF Post Time Email Newsletter: Get the news you need to play today's races!  Torres won 37 races as an apprentice in New York in 2023 and then had a terrific winter meet at Fair Grounds, where he won 42 races, good enough for fifth in the rider standings. Torres, who is now represented by agent Liz Morris, won a couple of stakes for Michelle Lovell, including on the top 3-year-old sprinter Doncho. Still, the support of a Hall of Fame trainer like Lukas goes a long way. “From the beginning, Wayne has been giving me a lot of opportunities and I appreciate that,” Torres said in an interview with NYRA publicity. “It’s not just me – Keith Asmussen and other apprentices, too. “Wayne means a lot and is very important to us. We just need someone to give us the opportunity, and he did.” :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.