The question didn’t have to be asked. Just listening to Michael Matz talk about the seventh-place finish by Union Rags in the Kentucky Derby it was easy to tell the trainer hasn’t gotten over the disappointment yet.
On the Monday morning following the Kentucky Derby, still wiped out and hoarse from cheering home I’ll Have Another, Paul Reddam sat down to a series of meetings with fund managers in the financial district of New York.
Paul Reddam, owner of Kentucky Derby winner I'll Have Another, went from academia to Churchill Downs and now to Pimlico on Saturday for the Preakness, though in the middle there was another key phase - a business innovation that allowed him to go from being an underpaid teacher to an owner of high-end racehorses.
With entry day fast approaching Wednesday for the 137th Preakness Stakes on Saturday at Pimlico, the prospective field came into sharper focus Monday, with Hansen, Hierro, and the longshot Brimstone Island bowing out, leaving a likely field of 11 or 12 for the second leg of the Triple Crown.
Hierro, the winner of the Derby Trial in his last start on April 28, will bypass the Preakness Stakes on Saturday.
Count Bodemeister in Saturday’s Preakness, and Isn’t He Clever and Hansen out. The latter two horses were with removed from Preakness consideration Monday morning, their trainers said, while others continued their training for the race with breezes and gallops over a rain-soaked Churchill Downs strip Monday morning.
A Grade 1 stakes for Arabian horses is being staged early on the Preakness card Saturday at Pimlico Race Course.
Kentucky Derby winner I’ll Have Another went through another strong gallop Monday morning at Pimlico, where trainer Doug O’Neill chose to send the colt to the track earlier than usual to dodge expected rain later in the morning.
Creative Cause jogged and galloped more than two miles at Betfair Hollywood Park on Sunday morning, showing enthusiasm that trainer Mike Harrington said he lacked for a few days after a fifth-place finish in the Kentucky Derby on May 5.
Tiger Walk and Zetterholm, both of whom are scheduled to run in the 137th Preakness Stakes on Saturday, each worked Sunday morning at Pimlico in their final drills for the second leg of the Triple Crown.
