The Fix Was In

A million-dollar score on the Kentucky Derby, a legend’s belongings on the block, and one bidder I could not beat.

By Mark Paul – Originally published in the Paulick Report · September 3, 2026

 

In 1988, two buddies and I put together a million-dollar score on the Kentucky Derby — a bet we made, without knowing it, with members of a Mexican drug cartel at a Tijuana racetrack called Agua Caliente. The reason for that windfall was a leggy, stunning gray filly named Winning Colors, who boldly took on the colts and became only the third female ever to win the Kentucky Derby.

And at the center of it stood the most famous horse trainer in America, D. Wayne Lukas. Central casting could not have built him better. They called him the “Hollywood” trainer and he earned every syllable of it: the movie-star jaw, the silver hair under the Stetson, the pressed jeans, the boots without a speck of dust on them, the Rolls-Royce parked outside the shedrow.

At 89 years old, he was still on horseback at dawn every morning, watching his horses gallop — until his death on June 28, 2025. I loved this man. He was my hero. It does not hurt that he helped me and my buddies win a cool million dollars.

Months later, I heard the Lukas heirs were holding a dispersal auction of his racing memorabilia in Lexington, Ky. Something went off in my chest. Oh my God — I had to be bidding. I had to own something irreplaceable and previously owned by this man.

The Lukas Auction Catalog — Everything I Absolutely Had to Have

There were things in that catalog anybody would want: Lukas’s Stetson beaver cowboy hat. His ostrich cowboy boots with silver spurs. A stable sign with D. Wayne Lukas Racing Stables etched into the wood. Maybe — just maybe — Lukas’s personal saddle (that will come in handy in Beverly Hills). And the last gem: his own 1988 photo album of my Kentucky Derby score on Winning Colors.

I sat there doing the real handicapping, which was whether my wife would let me hang that huge six-foot sign in our house.

The Morning of the Auction

Eleven a.m. Pacific time, and I was so excited I could not sit still. My keyboard fingers were ready. I was bidding online from my home office.

My wife was instrumental in helping me write the book about that Derby, and somewhat instrumental in giving me two sons. During the bidding she took a surprisingly keen interest in my bidding on a dead man’s belongings. She kept coming into the office. “Has the bidding started?” “Has the bidding started?” “Not yet,” I told her. “Not yet.”

And then, bam.

The Stetson came up and it went fast. $200 … $400 … I stopped at $500. It went for $850.

Now what the hell do I do.

The ostrich boots then — with silver-plated spurs, which I felt certain would come in handy at my golf club. I went to $700, but it kept climbing and sold for $2,200.

Damn. These guys bidding against me do not have brass balls. They have gold ones.

I knew I was in tough for the sign, so I decided to go all in, while that nagging little voice kept reminding me that my wife would never let me hang it in our house in a hundred years. $1,000 … $1,500 … I’m still in. $2,000 and I am out. It went for $6,500. Oh well. I probably dodged a bullet on that one.

The Lot That Mattered

Then I saw the last item that could connect me to Lukas and to my old adventurous life: Lot 369, his own 1988 Kentucky Derby photo album. I told myself five hundred dollars, which still seemed like an awful lot of money for a picture book.

The bidding on this one began, and it seemed like there was just one other bidder. But he was aggressive, and persistent. It opened at $75, and I was hopeful. I went to $200 … $300 … $400 … $500.

And it did not matter what I did. Every single time I bid, the other Lukas hero worshipper would overbid me instantly. My wife wandered back in to see how it was going, and I told her that no matter what I do, it seems one guy outbids me every damn time.

At $525, I gave up. I slammed my keyboard, came up empty, shut off the computer and quit.

It sold for $550. I quit $25 short.

The next day I could not hide my disappointment. Why had I dropped out and let the one thing that mattered to me get away over $25?

 

The following month was Thanksgiving, and my birthday days later, which meant I would get to see my sons. On my birthday they took my wife and me to a steak house, and when we got back to my son’s place there were three gifts waiting.

I am a golfer and I am impossible to buy for. The first was a dozen Pro V1s, which I will add to the nine dozen Pro V1s already sitting in my locker at the club. The second was a genuine surprise, a high-end G/FORE golf jacket, the kind of thing I would never buy for myself.

And then I felt the mood in the room change.

There was one more box. Beautifully wrapped. Surprisingly heavy. I truly had no idea what could be in it.

And I noticed both of my sons lean forward. I unwrapped it and saw black leather, gold lettering embossed on the cover:

1988 KENTUCKY DERBY
CHURCHILL DOWNS – LOUISVILLE, KY.

Lot 369. Every damn time I bid, somebody had outbid me instantly.
Now I knew who.
I could not talk. I just sat there. I felt the weight of that beautiful album in my hands.
“Happy birthday, Dad.”
And the tears rolled down my sixty-nine-year-old face.

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This column originally appeared in the Paulick Report on September 3, 2026.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARK PAUL

Mark Paul lives in Beverly Hills, Calif., and is the author of The Greatest Gambling Story Ever Told — a True Tale of Three Gamblers, the Kentucky Derby and the Mexican Cartel. He began his gambling career by sneaking into Hollywood Park and Santa Anita at age 16 and lives for action and adventure at locations where gambling occurs.

 

 

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THE GREATEST GAMBLING STORY EVER TOLD
A True Tale of Three Gamblers, the Kentucky Derby and the Mexican Cartel