BALTIMORE - The Friday Black-Eyed Susan card and the Preakness program on Saturday will be streamed in Spanish for the first time on Pimlico.com and GulfstreamPark.com.
Handicappers Alfredo Alfonzo of Videohipico.com and Juan Carlos Palma will provide commentary on programs from Pimlico and Gulfstream. Race calls will be provided by Pedro Casella. Claudia Spadaro will be live from Pimlico providing updates and interviews.
BALTIMORE – Midnight Disguise will scratch from Friday’s Grade 2, $250,000 Black-Eyed Susan Stakes at Pimlico due to a bruised right front foot, trainer Linda Rice said Thursday. Midnight Disguise was the co-second choice at 4-1 on the track morning-line.
Rice said Midnight Disguise showed signs of lameness Wednesday night around feed time at her Belmont Park barn. Further evaluation revealed the bruise.
“We’re working on it, but she’s not good enough to take to Maryland,” Rice said by phone from New York Thursday afternoon.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Ontario-bred 3-year-old Flameaway, who finished 13th in the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 5, will not run in the $1 million Queen’s Plate at Woodbine on June 30, and will instead be pointed to the Grade 3, $500,000 Ohio Derby on June 23 at Thistledown, trainer Mark Casse said.
“After much discussion with Mr. Oxley, at this point in time Flameaway is not going to pursue the Queen’s Plate,” Casse said, referring to owner John Oxley. “If all goes as planned, he’s going to go to the Ohio Derby, which then is too close to the Queen’s Plate.”
BALTIMORE – Diamond King, in his first morning at Pimlico on Thursday, jogged two miles the wrong way – clockwise – around the track under exercise rider Efrain Santana. The track was sloppy and a steady rain was falling.
Diamond King, a winner of four of six starts, will taking a big step up in class in the 143rd Preakness, and trainer John Servis is realistic about his chances of winning. Diamond King is doing exceptionally well, however, and comes into the race off a four-week break following his victory in the Federico Tesio Stakes on April 21.
BALTIMORE – Jeannine Edwards, who worked as an in-house television anchor for the Maryland Jockey Club tracks at the outset of her brilliant 22-year career as a racing and sports reporter, was honored Thursday morning with the Special Award of Merit at the annual Alibi Breakfast in the Pimlico clubhouse.
Edwards worked as an exercise rider, jockey, and assistant trainer prior to entering the television field. She retired early this year.
BALTIMORE – Humberto Gomez, the exercise rider of Kentucky Derby winner Justify, will be watching Saturday’s Preakness with a heavy heart after his father, Ulpiano Portela Gomez, died Tuesday in Mexico. He was 86.
“It was tough because he’s the one who brought me to the horse industry, but at least he got to watch the Kentucky Derby,” Gomez said Wednesday after arriving in Baltimore from Kentucky with Justify. “I guess he was proud of me.”
BALTIMORE – While Stonestreet Stables has yet to win the Kentucky Derby, it has twice enjoyed success in the Preakness at the expense of a Kentucky Derby winner.
On Saturday at Pimlico Racecourse, when the Preakness is run for the 143rd time, Stonestreet, along with its partner Bob Edwards, will seek its third victory in this race while hoping to spoil the Triple Crown hopes of undefeated Derby winner Justify.
BALTIMORE – In the giddy first moments of a post-race press conference following Justify’s victory in the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago at Churchill Downs, Bob Baffert looked over at Elliott Walden and said, “Elliott cost me a Triple Crown, so you’re off the hook, Elliott.”
“You cost me a Derby,” Walden quickly replied.
BALTIMORE – The 14-race Preakness Day 143 card at Pimlico on Saturday includes seven undercard stakes. First post is 10:30 a.m. Eastern.
The Preakness, which is race 13, will be the final leg of an all-stakes pick five with a $1 million pool guarantee. A $2 million-guaranteed pick four also will end on the Preakness.
The late pick five consists of the Grade 3 Gallorette (8 horses), Grade 3 Maryland Sprint (9), The Very One Stakes (14), the Sir Barton (11), and the Preakness (8). The pick four begins on the Maryland Sprint.
Since the turn of the century, four horses have won the Preakness Stakes as fresh horses after bypassing the Kentucky Derby two weeks prior. In the same span, four horses who were unstarted as juveniles were victorious in the middle jewel of the Triple Crown.
Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen has saddled a Preakness winner from each of those groups – and his representative Saturday fits in both boxes. Tenfold is among four colts in the Preakness field of eight who are new challengers to Kentucky Derby hero Justify, along with Diamond King, Quip, and Sporting Chance.
