ARCADIA, Calif. – The six-time stakes winner Midnight Storm will be ridden for the first time by Flavien Prat in the Grade 1 Gold Cup at Santa Anita on May 27, trainer Phil D’Amato said on Friday.
The $500,000 Gold Cup at Santa Anita is run at 1 1/4 miles and is the richest race of the track’s spring-summer meeting.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Wando Stakes winner King and His Court and runner-up Tiz a Slam lead the first Daily Racing Form Queen’s Plate Watch list of 2017.
The $1 million Queen’s Plate will be run for the 158th time on July 2, just six weeks away, and 45 Canadian-bred 3-year-olds remain eligible for the first jewel of the Canadian Triple Crown.
BALTIMORE – D. Wayne Lukas, a six-time winner of the Preakness Stakes, rolled into Old Hilltop from Kentucky on Wednesday with a pair of horses in tow.
Lukas is tied with Bob Baffert as the second-winningest trainer in Preakness history. Only 19th-century horseman Robert Wyndham Walden, who won the race seven times between 1875 and 1888, has more Preakness wins.
Lukas, 81, won the Preakness in 2013 with Oxbow, in 1999 with Charismatic, in 1995 with Timber Country, in 1994 with Tabasco Cat, in 1985 with Tank’s Propsect, and in 1980 with Codex.
BALTIMORE – The Beyer Speed Figure for Multiplier’s victory in the Illinois Derby has been adjusted from an 88 to a 94. Multiplier is a 30-1 longshot on the morning line for Saturday’s Preakness at Pimlico.
The figure for Illinois Derby runner-up Hedge Fund, beaten a head, was also adjusted similarly. Hedge Fund is running in the $100,000 Sir Barton Stakes on the Preakness undercard.
BALTIMORE – Of the 19 horses who chased home Always Dreaming in the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago, just four are back to challenge in the Preakness Stakes on Saturday at Pimlico, with their backers hoping a scenario that has played out more often than not over the last three decades returns anew.
BALTIMORE – Jim Dunleavy, the Mid-Atlantic correspondent for Daily Racing Form, was presented with the prestigious Old Hilltop Award here Thursday during the annual Alibi Breakfast. The award is presented by the Maryland Jockey Club “for covering Thoroughbred racing with excellence and distinction.”
Dunleavy has worked in a variety of roles at the Form since 1982 and most recently returned to the field in 2014 after serving more than two decades in the editorial department at several locations.
BALTIMORE – The road to a divisional Eclipse Award has run through the Preakness in 15 of the last 20 years.
Since Silver Charm won in 1997, all but five Preakness winners have been voted the top 3-year-old male of the year. The exceptions were Tiznow (2000), Summer Bird (2009), Animal Kingdom (2011), Will Take Charge (2013), and Arrogate (2016).
During the same 20-year period, the Eclipse has been voted to 11 winners of the Derby and four of the Belmont.
BALTIMORE – For whatever reason, the Preakness long has been the most formful of the three Triple Crown events, with 72 winning favorites from 142 runnings (there were two divisions in 1918), for a strike rate of 50.7 percent.
By contrast, 51 of 143 favorites (35.7 percent) have won the Kentucky Derby, and 56 of the 133 known favorites (statistics are incomplete), or 42.1 percent, have won the Belmont.
BALTIMORE – Larry Collmus has become entrenched as the premier Thoroughbred race-caller in North America, but he always feels humbled when returning home to Pimlico Race Course to call the Preakness for NBC Sports.
“This is where things started happening for me,” said Collmus.
Collmus, who grew up in nearby Ellicott City, was just 17 and a Pimlico gofer for press-box steward Eddie McMullen when he began calling races into a tape recorder. Before long, Pimlico general manager Chick Lang Sr. and his son, publicity director Chick Jr., took Collmus under their wing.
