Extrasexyhippzster shortens up in Chick Lang Stakes
BALTIMORE – Rather than press forward in futility, Michael Trombetta said he is opting to “take a step back” with the curiously named Extrasexyhippzster, one of the top contenders Saturday in the $100,000 Chick Lang Stakes on the Preakness undercard at Pimlico.
“The simplest way to put it is we’re going back to what’s worked well before,” said Trombetta, a longtime Maryland-based trainer.
Extrasexyhippzster was drubbed in his last two starts, the Gotham and Blue Grass stakes, as an effort to make the 3-year-old classics fell flat. By turning back to six furlongs in the Lang, the colt appears to stand a solid chance of returning to form, especially given what amounts to a substantial class drop. He and jockey Julian Pimentel will break from post 2 in a field of nine.
“He trained well into those last two races but just didn’t show up, for whatever reason,” Trombetta said. “He ran some nice numbers” in winning back-to-back ungraded stakes over the winter, “and I just thought this was the right way to go.”
Extrasexyhippzster figures to have a D. Wayne Lukas-trained colt named Brewing as a primary foe to run down. Brewing (post 9, Luis Saez) also is a two-time ungraded stakes winner, having accounted for the Gazebo and Bachelor at Oaklawn Park this spring.
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Others in good form include Meadowood (post 5, Javier Castellano), making his stakes debut after winning his first two starts; Elevated (post 7, Sheldon Russell), making a sixth straight stakes start; and Prudhoe Bay (post 8, Angel Serpa), a two-time restricted stakes winner.
The Lang goes as the seventh of 13 Saturday races (post time 2:35 p.m. Eastern). It is named for the man fondly known as “Mr. Preakness,” who retired in 1987 after 28 years as general manager at Pimlico and died in March 2010.