BALTIMORE – Smart Strike and his sons have been extremely successful in producing stamina for the Triple Crown series – and, indeed, have stood out in the Preakness Stakes, specifically.

That history is one of the best things that longshots Fenwick and Skippylongstocking will have going for them in Saturday’s Preakness. Fenwick is by Smart Strike’s two-time Horse of the Year Curlin, while Skippylongstocking is by Curlin’s son Exaggerator. Both sires are Preakness winners themselves.

Rob and Stacy Mitchell take pride in being hands-on owners and breeders, doing their own work with their horses at their Briland Farm in Lexington, Ky. That includes delivering the foals.

“She usually sleeps in the barn and delivers them,” Rob Mitchell said of his wife.

“I call him when the water breaks,” Stacy Mitchell said with a laugh.

Creative Minister was a 2 3/4-length winner of a salty allowance race at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May, some seven hours before Epicenter carried the Winchell Thoroughbreds colors to a game second in the Kentucky Derby. The two colts will converge in the Preakness Stakes on Saturday. Ironically, Creative Minister, who races for Fern Circle Stables, Back Racing, and trainer Kenny McPeek, is from a Winchell foundation family and will now seek to upset their star colt in the Preakness.

Rich Strike, who gave Calumet Farm a record-extending 10th Kentucky Derby victory as a breeder, will not be in Baltimore on Saturday. But Calumet homebred Happy Jack is expected to be in the starting gate for the Preakness Stakes, looking to extend the historic operation’s record in the second jewel of the Triple Crown.

Happy Jack is by Calumet stallion Oxbow, who gave the farm its first Triple Crown victory under Brad Kelley’s ownership when he won the 2013 Preakness. Happy Jack carried the same black and gold colors to finish 14th in this year’s Kentucky Derby.

Flatter, a consistently successful sire who carried on the legacy of A.P. Indy as a cornerstone of the Claiborne Farm roster for nearly two decades, was euthanized on Monday due to the infirmities of old age. He was 23.

Flatter, by A.P. Indy and out of Praise, was a second-generation homebred for Claiborne and longtime partner Adele Dilschneider, and a full brother to graded stakes winner and successful sire Congrats.

Keen Ice will forever be remembered for an upset victory, as he ran down Triple Crown hero American Pharoah to win the 2015 Travers Stakes, stunning an enthusiastic crowd at Saratoga as he returned $34 for the win.

Rich Strike said, ‘Dad, hold my mint julep.’

Rich Strike, from the first crop of Calumet Farm stallion Keen Ice, pulled off the second-biggest upset in Kentucky Derby history on Saturday evening at Churchill Downs, shocking a full house as he overhauled favored Epicenter in the final stages and returning $163.60.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It will be Sunday morning in South Korea when the Kentucky Derby is run Saturday morning at Churchill Downs, and the Thoroughbred industry in that nation will be waking up to find out if one of its residents is a winning classic sire.

Try to name reliable classic lines in the United States, and a couple immediately come to mind: Kentucky Derby winner Unbridled, who has founded a strong branch of the family tree for his grandsire, the prolific Mr. Prospector, and Belmont Stakes winner A.P. Indy, who represents Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew’s branch of the Bold Ruler line. Both are solidly represented in a Kentucky Derby field that is extremely hard to pick apart on pedigree.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Two successful classic sires – including one of the most successful stallions in the modern history of the Kentucky Oaks – are among those whose progeny should not be bothered by the expected wet track for Friday’s filly classic.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – They say breed the best to the best, and hope for the best. Mandy Pope began seriously upgrading her broodmare band about a decade ago in order to follow that maxim, and has established one of the best in the country. That has led her to Kentucky Derby week, where she’s hoping for the best with her lightly raced Charge It.