Trainer Daniel Velazquez said that Brooklyn Strong, his stakes-winning 3-year-old gelding who finished fifth in the Wood Memorial on April 3, is targeting the Preakness on May 15 at Pimlico. Over the weekend, Velazquez and Brooklyn Strong's owner Mark Schwartz were planning to decide whether to run in the Federico Tesio at Pimlico next Saturday beforehand.
Pimlico Race Course will run 16 stakes on the two race cards featuring the $1 million Preakness Stakes and Black-Eyed Susan Stakes this year, the track announced on Thursday, with total purses of $3.25 million.
Laurel Park in Maryland will offer $2.65 million in purses for 24 stakes during its winter schedule this year, including two stakes that will offer the winners automatic berths in the Grade 1 Preakness Stakes and Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan Stakes at its sister track, Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore.
Kenny McPeek has made a career out of proving the naysayers wrong, and the trainer did it once again Saturday when he sent out Swiss Skydiver to become just the sixth filly in history to win the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course.
Miss Marissa had won her prior two starts, at Monmouth and Saratoga, going long in allowance company, and completed a hat trick on Saturday with a front-running score in the Grade 2, $250,000 race for 3-year-old fillies.
There's no Triple Crown on the line Saturday with the 145th Preakness at Pimlico, but there will still be plenty at stake, including validation of the Kentucky Derby upset by Authentic, who figures as part of a front-running phalanx in a race with considerably more pace.
Factor This ran too good to lose last time, and well enough to win in his four starts prior. With better luck, he might be going for his sixth straight victory on Saturday in the Grade 2, $250,000 Dinner Party Stakes at Pimlico, but instead he'll try to start a new streak, and he'll be favored to succeed.
Authentic and Art Collector both were pictures of health Thursday morning at Pimlico, where they’ll go postward Saturday as the clear-cut favorites in the 145th Preakness Stakes, the final leg of the 2020 Triple Crown.
Bob Baffert had run in the Kentucky Derby 19 times previously, and had won it five times, but the lead-up to this year's race, he said, felt different. How could it not? The Derby was being run four months after it was originally scheduled, owing to a pandemic, in a city riven by the police killing of a woman in her home months earlier.
Authentic and Art Collector got a feel for the Pimlico track Wednesday morning for the first time as the days dwindle down toward the 145th Preakness.
