Midnight Interlude, who finished 16th in the Kentucky Derby after capturing the Santa Anita Derby, tuned up for Saturday’s Preakness Stakes at Pimlico with a three-furlong drill in 35.60 seconds on Monday morning at Churchill Downs.
Wyomia, the runner-up in the Grade 1 Ashland Stakes at Keeneland last month, is among the seven 3-year-old fillies entered to run Friday in the Grade 2, $250,000 Black Eyed Susan Stakes at Pimlico.
With owner Ahmed Zayat watching from the grandstand, Kentucky Derby runner-up Nehro breezed a half-mile in 50.80 seconds over a sloppy Churchill Downs racetrack early Monday morning, leaving Zayat trying to decide whether to send the colt to the $1 million Preakness.
King Congie, beaten only a head when third in the Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes last month, worked five furlongs in 1:04.60 Sunday morning over a good Belmont Park main track in preparation for a start in Saturday’s $1 million Preakness Stakes at Pimlico.
Dance City, who is expected to be a major pace factor in Saturday's Preakness Stakes, and Saratoga Red, whose participation in the second leg of the Triple Crown hinges on the size of the field, both worked five furlongs on an off track on Sunday morning at Churchill Downs.
In stark contrast to the sea of humanity that descended on the Churchill Downs property on Kentucky Derby Day, there was no one beyond the very hard-core on the backstretch the following Saturday morning when Sway Away had his final pre-race workout for the 136th Preakness. Not even Jeff Bonde, the California-based trainer who conditions Sway Away, was here.
On Monday morning, two days after the Kentucky Derby, John Velazquez walked into the kitchen of his Long Island home, grabbed a cup of coffee, and sat down next to his wife Leona. He thought he had just accomplished something very important in his career, but just to make sure he sent a text message to his friend, trainer Graham Motion.
Learn all about Animal Kingdom, from his beginnings to his winning run in the 2011 Kentucky Derby, with video of each of his five career races.
Ahmed Zayat, the owner of Kentucky Derby runner-up Nehro, said that he was “on the fence big time” over whether to run in the Preakness. Zayat said his gut instinct tells him to wait for the Belmont Stakes – which he said the day after the Derby he was most likely to do – but all reports from Kentucky indicate his horse has come out of the race extremely well and may be ready to run back in two weeks.
Animal Kingdom was a thoroughly deserving and admirable winner of the 137th Kentucky Derby, but the race was one of the most strangely run Triple Crown races in the modern era. The opening six furlongs in 1:13.40 were the slowest on a fast Derby track in 64 years. The race unfolded so slowly that Zenyatta could have been on the lead. Seriously.
