If he had the chance to do it over again, D. Wayne Lukas would have replaced jockey Chris Antley before he rode Charismatic in the 1999 Belmont Stakes, the Hall-of-Fame trainer said yesterday.

After winning the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, Charismatic ran third in the Belmont under a much-criticized ride and was pulled up after the race with a fractured ankle.

“He wasn’t focused at all that week, and I must have said 30 times I wanted to take him off,” Lukas said of Antley, the troubled young rider who died of an accidental drug overdose last December. “He showed absolutely no interest in the horse, never came by to see him, never called to see how he was doing.

“If you were going for a $5 million bonus, don’t you think you’d sleep tied to the stall door?”

The media, Lukas said, “were all writing these ‘Black Beauty’ stories about him and Charismatic, but they never bonded. After the Derby, I never saw or heard from him until I gave him a leg up at the Preakness. And then I didn’t talk to him until the Friday before the Belmont, when I told him if he didn’t show up, I’d get another rider.”

Antley is credited with saving Charismatic’s life by jumping off after the Belmont and cradling his broken leg.

But after that, Lukas said, Antley never inquired about the colt’s condition.

“He was talking to the press outside the barn after the race,” Lukas said. “Charismatic was standing there in his stall, and we didn’t know if he would live or die. Now, if you cared about the horse, don’t you think you’d walk the 20 feet to see him?

“I know I would. But he just got back into his limousine and drove away. I never heard from him after that, and he never rode another race for me again.”