Handle on the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore dropped 10 percent compared with the same race last year, a decline that was at least partially due to a late thunderstorm that washed out handicappers’ confidence in their already low expectations for payouts in the race.
For Firing Line, Saturday’s Preakness Stakes was over before it truly began. Two jumps into the race, the Kentucky Derby runner-up stumbled over the sloppy Pimlico track, and he never truly recovered.
Perry Ouzts moved into 12th place on the all-time list of winningest jockeys by riding three winners Saturday at Belterra Park in Cincinnati.
The rains came, and American Pharoah reigned.
Robert Adair, the leading rider at Los Alamitos for much of the 1970s and one of Quarter Horse racing’s leading all-time jockeys, died on Saturday after a lengthy battle with cancer.
The $53,700 Wild Rose Handicap for fillies and mares Saturday at Northlands Park was pretty much over when the heavily favored Rock and Glory, who paid $3.30, broke sharply from the inside post.
It was the perfect storm – or in the case of the 140th Preakness on Saturday at Pimlico, the most imperfect of storms.
Celestine, who beat maidens and then won the Sanibel Island Stakes at Gulfstream Park for her former connections in March, stretched her winning streak to three by capturing Saturday’s $100,000 Wait a While Stakes at Belmont Park in her first start for Bill Mott.
These are the mutuel payoffs from the 140th Preakness, run Saturday at Pimlico.
Given a beautiful ride by Javier Castellano, Ironicus sat behind a bunched pack of horses into the far turn, crept up along the inside round the bend, tipped two wide to split horses in midstretch, and stormed to a going-away victory in the Grade 2, $300,000 Dixie.
