Preakness 2012: D. Wayne Lukas' Whining Won't Help Him Return to Winning Ways

D. Wayne Lukas needs to leave the PED whining in baseball, where it belongs. Until the innocent are proven guilty, there's no room for it in horse-racing, especially right before one of the sport's only premiere events.

After Doug O'Neill's I'll Have Another registered an exciting upset victory in the Kentucky Derby, a cloud was cast over the win when his history of horse-drugging allegations was brought to light, according to the Associated Press.

Now, in the days leading up to the Preakness—where O'Neill will race his champion horse and Lukas will race Optimizer, who finished 11th at Churchill Downs—Lukas is firing off against his contemporaries, accusing them of jeopardizing the sanctity of the sport.

According to the AP, Lukas mentioned Rick Dutrow, who is appealing a 10-year ban for medication violations, Chip Woolley and reigning Derby champion O'Neill in his rant.

In an interview with the AP, Lukas said: 

"

We've got Dutrow under suspension. We've got Chip Woolley [urinating] on the slot machines in casinos. And now Doug, at least, has some gray area hanging over him. That bothers me, frankly. I think those guys are all good enough they don't need for there to be doubts. I think they can train horses and not have that problem in front of them. They can do it the right way. 

"

What Lukas seems to be suggesting, with just a hint of condescension, is that you can't win these days without cheating. But this is not baseball.

One Derby winning trainer who has been suspended for medication violations does not a tainted sport make. A trainer who embarrasses himself at a race track doesn't mean anything except the guy is an idiot. And plus, every professional sport has its own cast of colorful characters—and in other sports, some of them are even champions.

More likely, Lukas is angry that he hasn't been producing recently.

Lukas, a Hall of Famer, was the first trainer to earn more than $100 million in purse money and has won the Derby four times and the Preakness five times. He's also the first trainer to win the Triple Crown with two different horses.

But it's been a while. The last time he won the Derby or the Preakness was in 1999, and Optimizer is currently a 12-1 long shot for Saturday's race, according to AllHorseRacing.com. The horse has a reputation for running poorly on dirt tracks, which won't help him at Pimlico.

The truth remains that no amount of drugging will make Optimizer fast enough or good enough on dirt to win the Derby or the Preakness. That seems to be Lukas' real problem.