Preakness: Authentic served by two masters

Between the two of them, trainers Bob Baffert and D. Wayne Lukas have won the Preakness Stakes 13 times, and they’ve amassed 30 Triple Crown race wins. That’s a lot of success and experience to bring to hand for one horse, and this year they’ve combined forces for the final leg of the out-of-order 2020 Triple Crown, with Authentic.

Authentic remained at Churchill Downs following his victory in the Kentucky Derby on Sept. 5, with Baffert, his trainer, placing him in Lukas’s barn for safekeeping. Baffert was in Kentucky following the Derby to attend the yearling sales at Fasig-Tipton and Keeneland, and was able to check in then, but he subsequently had to return to California to oversee his main barn at Santa Anita.

Baffert went back to Kentucky on Sunday, and on Monday morning at Churchill Downs he watched Authentic go through his final work in advance of the Preakness, officially a half-mile drill in 47.60 seconds that included a gallop-out of another quarter-mile. The baton has been passed from Lukas back to Baffert.

“Wayne put the pressure on me. He said he’s not going to get beat on my watch, so don’t mess it up,” Baffert said from Kentucky.

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Authentic was one of four Preakness entrants who worked Monday, with Steve Asmussen sending out his trio of Excession, Max Player, and Pneumatic for half-mile drills – Excession and Max Player at Churchill Downs, Pneumatic at Saratoga.

Excession and Max Player worked separately but went in identical times of 49.80 seconds over a track rated fast. Pneumatic, on an Oklahoma training track labeled good, was timed in 50.20.

Authentic’s work, the fastest of 37 at the distance Monday, was with jockey Martin Garcia, who is now based in Kentucky but for years was in California and often was a main work rider for Baffert.

“He went real nice, handled it well,” Baffert said of the work. “Lot of energy.”

Baffert will be going for a record eighth Preakness win Saturday. All five of his previous Derby winners won the race, plus two more, all those coming, of course, when the Preakness was run two weeks after the Derby.

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If successful Saturday, Baffert will break a tie with R. Wyndham Walden, who trained seven Preakness winners between 1875 and 1888. Lukas has won the Preakness six times.

Baffert and Lukas are first and third, respectively, for Preakness wins among trainers, but they are one-two for Triple Crown race wins. Baffert has won 16 Triple Crown races, Lukas 14.

They have had remarkably similar backgrounds, having graduated from success in the Quarter Horse world, largely at Los Alamitos in Southern California, to Thoroughbreds. Lukas was the pulling guard who cleared the path beginning in the mid-1970s, and Baffert the running back who came through that hole a little more than a decade later.

Their relationship, once tense in large part owing to trying to do well for similar clientele – like Bob and Beverly Lewis, for whom both won multiple Triple Crown races – has evolved into a warm friendship. It could be called Authentic.