Saturday trainer Bob Baffert will make his third attempt at a Triple Crown.

It's not that Wayne Lukas feels his pain, but he certainly understands. Wayne was Bob. Bob is now Wayne. Just like Baffert, Lukas came into thoroughbred racing from the quarter horses, was new, fresh, different and successful. Just like with Baffert, the press and just about everyone else in racing, thought he was the greatest thing since the invention of the starting gate. Just like with Baffert, the honeymoon turned ugly and everyone just got real sick of the guy. Just like with Baffert, Lukas' relationship with the press could be adversarial.

Why's everyone so sour on Baffert? Who better to ask than Wayne Lukas?

"The m.o. of the press -- and it's not just in horse racing but in sports in general -- is to take the poster boys, build them up and bring them to a level," Lukas said. "After you get them up there and they become good copy and give you the good quotes, then all of a sudden you have to go through a whole series of bringing them back down."

Though they'll take their jabs at their enemies, perceived and otherwise, in the media, both Lukas and Baffert are remarkably cooperative with the press. Both are stars in their fields, have opinions and aren't afraid to voice them, which makes for good copy. No one is rushing to the barn of Neil Drysdale, the stand-offish trainer of Sunday Break, to get their notebooks filled with witty comments. That, says Lukas, is part of the problem.

"We have a certain obligation to the industry to put our best foot forward," he said. "As much as it gets distracting and unsettling, I think you have to take a certain approach. This is our time of year, and one of the few times we make it from the eighth page of the sports section to the third page. It gets tiring and it gets boring, but it's part of the game. Bob likes to have some fun and sometimes he might be misunderstood. People can take that one little thing he may say and twist it around. Bob and I take one approach and are out there promoting the sport. Some other trainers do it differently. But you make your own bed and you have to lie in it."

Why do some people dislike Baffert? Everyone has their own reasons, but some of it has to do with the perception that, for Baffert, success has come too easily. He may seem more interested in cultivating his frat boy image and coming up with one-liners than getting down and dirty with a horse in its stall at 5 a.m. Call it insouciance.

Lukas himself has fanned those fires. He was quoted prior to the Preakness saying that Baffert "has been on scholarship his whole life." This week, he's made several cracks that the only reason the plane carrying Baffert's War Emblem and Lukas' Proud Citizen arrived Wednesday in New York at such a relatively late hour is that no one could get Baffert out of bed. Baffert is notorious for showing up at his barn about the same time someone like Lukas, one of the hardest workers in the game, is heading home.

"That stuff is all in good fun," Lukas said.

What does Lukas really think of Baffert? What he says publicly and what he feels privately may be two different things, at least a lot of people believe that to be the case. But Lukas seems sincere when he speaks of how much he respects Baffert for his many accomplishments.

"I respect him very much," he said. "I've known him for 30 some years and when I was just leaving the quarter horse game he was just coming into it. He kind of picked up the ball right where we left off and was very successful. He's made great strides in this sport. When you go down the program, just like when coaches go down their conference schedules, you look at certain teams or certain trainers and you know the ones who are going to test you. Bob's one of them. There are some guys in these Triple Crown races, and I'm not going to name names, that I don't worry about at all."

And the how can a guy whose been on scholarship all his life be so successful?

"Hard work and all that, well, we're not going to point to that," Lukas said. "One of the intangible things that is overlooked is his feel for the game. There are some trainers -- John Nerud, Bob, myself, some of the older trainers -- that have a feel for what a horse needs and doesn't need. They have a feel for how races are run and what you can and cannot do with a horse. It's hard to pinpoint, but Bob has that feel. There are a lot of trainers that get good horses and they just don't get there. How come some get there more often than others? You need a feel for the event and what it takes to be successful."

There's no doubt that Baffert has that touch and that his handling of War Emblem has been nothing short of masterful. He has his horse primed to win the Triple Crown, but not everyone will be cheering if he does. There may even be more people rooting for Proud Citizen because Baffert knocking is in and Lukas knocking is passe. Fair or not, that's the way it is. Everyone doesn't always love a winner. Just ask Wayne.