LAUREL, Md. - At the top of the stretch, Napoleon Solo assumed control of the 151st Preakness Stakes - the first held at Laurel Park - but there was still a quarter-mile left to run. Watching the race on a television in the Laurel paddock, trainer Chad Summers and owner Al Gold were imploring their horse and jockey Paco Lopez to keep going.  Lopez, atop Napoleon Solo, began looking around. Two glances under his left arm. One under the right. Left. Right. Left.  Lopez saw only Iron Honor coming, and that one just wasn’t fast enough to catch Napoleon Solo, who went on to win the Preakness by 1 1/4 lengths in a 14-horse field. Iron Honor finished second by 3 1/4 lengths over Chip Honcho.  Summers said he felt a sense of confidence when Lopez started looking around.  “I’ve watched Paco for a long time, that’s Paco being Paco, he rides every horse with so much confidence whether it’s a match race at Parx or the Grade 1 Preakness,” said Summers, who won his first Triple Crown race with his first Triple Crown starter. “The one thing we talked about yesterday, we talked about today, was just ride this horse with confidence. He’s a better horse than you rode in the Wood [Memorial], I promise you that, and he had enough horse underneath him to get the job done.”  :: Access the most trusted data and information in horse racing! DRF Past Performances and Picks are available now. Napoleon Solo gave not only Summers but also Gold their first victories in a Triple Crown race. Summers has been buying horses for Gold for about six years and, after Gold won races - including the Grade 1 Haskell with Cyberknife in 2022 - with other trainers, Gold finally started using Summers about three years ago.  “We’ve got a lot of horses together, I’m more than grateful for the job he did getting these horses ready - especially this one,” Gold said.  Napoleon Solo went 2 for 2 as a 2-year-old, including a fast victory in the Grade 1 Champagne at Aqueduct, but his 3-year-old year did not start well. He finished fifth in the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth in February, and a bruised foot forced him to miss the Arkansas Derby on March 28 and interrupted his training for the Wood Memorial run a week later. Napoleon Solo finished fifth in the Wood after setting the pace.  Since the Wood, however, Napoleon Solo had been training brilliantly. While the major summer goal was the Grade 1 Haskell on July 18 at Monmouth Park - which is Gold’s home track - the path on how to get there was less certain. After “300 to 400 phone calls,” Summers said, the decision was made to run in the Preakness.  “To do that, we felt like we had to push the button a little bit in the morning time,” Summers said.  There were some fast works, including a six-furlong move in 1:10, something that is rare to see over the Belmont Park training track, but one that obviously had him ready to run Saturday.  The Preakness went pretty much how Summers thought it might. In a race that appeared to have plenty of speed, Taj Mahal, the undefeated Maryland-based horse who was sent off the 9-2 favorite - the longest-priced favorite in Preakness history - went to the lead from the rail under Sheldon Russell.  Taj Mahal ran the opening quarter in 22.66 seconds and the half-mile in 46.66 with Napoleon Solo a length behind. Napoleon Solo, from second, tracked Taj Mahal to the middle of the turn before taking the lead before the five-sixteenths pole. Even though Napoleon Solo didn’t finish particularly fast - the final three-sixteenths of a mile was run in 20.14 seconds - there was no catching him.  “They went 46-and-3, we had a plan to make that first move at the top of the stretch and make them have to come catch us,” Summers said. “Paco followed the plan to brilliance.”  Napoleon Solo, a son of Liam’s Map, covered the 1 3/16 miles in 1:58.69 (96 Beyer Speed Figure) and returned $17.80 as the fourth choice.  Lopez said naturally he was a little worried that someone was coming in the stretch.  “For sure. Any big horse race, everybody’s coming,” Lopez said. “I had to wait, wait, wait and when I asked the horse he gave me a big run.”  Iron Honor, coming out of a troubled seventh in the Wood, raced a joint third while widest of all down the backside outside of Talkin and Chip Honcho. Iron Honor, ridden by Flavien Prat, tried to move when Napoleon Solo did, but it was only good enough to finish second.  “I thought I had a good trip, we turned for home, I thought I had a chance, just couldn’t go by the winner,” Prat said.  Chad Brown, the trainer of Iron Honor, said the wide trip “probably took the starch out of him a little bit when it mattered late,” he said. “The winner ran terrific, so hats off to him.”  Chip Honcho, who skipped the Kentucky Derby because trainer Steve Asmussen was concerned how the horse would handle the surroundings of a large crowd at Churchill Downs, ran an even race to finish third, 2 3/4 lengths clear of the maiden Ocelli, who finished fourth Saturday after his third in the Kentucky Derby.  “Jose [Ortiz] gave him a really good trip,” Asmussen said. “He handled really nicely. He gave a lot of effort.”  Ocelli finished a neck in front of Incredibolt, the sixth-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby. The two horses were in the back of the pack and came with similar late runs that fell way short.  Riley Mott, the trainer of Incredibolt, and Whit Beckman, the trainer of Ocelli, made similar comments about how they felt the early pace was fast, “but they just never really came back to us as we had hoped,” Mott said.  Following Incredibolt in the order of finish was Bull by the Horns, The Hell We Did, Great White, Robusta, Taj Mahal, Corona de Oro, Talkin, Crupper, and Pretty Boy Miah, who was eased.  Brittany Russell, the trainer of Taj Mahal, was trying to become the first female trainer - she was the 17th to try - to win the Preakness, two weeks after Cherie DeVaux became the first female trainer to win the Kentucky Derby. But after Napoleon Solo overtook him, Taj Mahal retreated, beaten 13 3/4 lengths.  “He was moving along, but I thought he was doing it comfortably,” said Russell, adding that when Napoleon Solo “came to him he didn’t have an answer for him, it’s that simple.”  No one did.  - additional reporting by Patrick Moquin and Nicole Russo    :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.