Laki prevails in three-way photo in De Francis Dash

BALTIMORE – Damon Dilodovico spent the vast majority of Preakness Day helping to coordinate post-race interviews in the Pimlico winner’s circle. Dilodovico is a longtime employee of International Sound, the company that produces in-house television for the track.

But for a few giddy moments, Dilodovico was otherwise occupied Saturday by his “other job” as a horse trainer. And so it was that Dilodovico kept the microphone he normally hands over to a winning trainer or jockey all to himself after his stable star, Laki, emerged victorious in a thrilling conclusion to the Grade 3, $200,000 De Francis Dash.

“It was unbelievably exciting,” said Dilodovico, now in his 30th year as a trainer on the Maryland circuit. “Everybody was hollering like it was a full house, like it was a May Preakness. It means the world to me.”

Laki was part of a tight three-way photo in which a late-flying Eastern Bay barely missed catching him and a dogged Nitrous barely missed holding on. Indeed, the wire came at precisely the right time for Laki, a 7-year-old Maryland-bred gelding who returned $16.40 as one of the outsiders in a field of six older horses.

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The two favorites, Landeskog (9-10) and Admiral Lynch (3-1), finished last and second-to-last, respectively, in a six-furlong race that went in 1:09.70 over a fast surface. They were nowhere around when Nitrous emerged with a tenuous lead with about 100 yards to go, only to be nipped on the wire for the win by Laki and for second by the rallying Eastern Bay. It was another 1 1/4 lengths back to front-running Krsto Skye in fourth.

“This is the stable horse,” said Horacio Karamanos, the veteran jockey who rode Laki for Dilodovico and owners Hillside Equestrian Meadows. “Laki, I really love this horse. I really love the trainer, the family. Everybody works together.”

Laki had finished second in each of his last three starts, all at Laurel Park, but he is now victorious in 10 of 28 starts, with this being his first graded win. Besides several ungraded stakes wins, among his best prior performances was a second in the De Francis in September 2018 at Laurel.

The $2 exacta (4-3) paid $74, the $1 trifecta (4-3-8) returned $151.70, and the 10-cent superfecta (4-3-8-2) was worth $82.84.

The De Francis Dash honors Frank J. DeFrancis, who is widely credited with reviving Maryland racing in the years before his death in 1989.