HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Triple Crown nominee Crupper earned a Preakness berth for his win in the $200,000 Bathhouse Row Stakes last Saturday at Oaklawn Park and will be considered for a start in the 3-year-old classic, according to his trainer, Donnie Von Hemel.
Crupper emerged from the Bathhouse Row in good order and is now settled in at Churchill. Von Hemel and Robert Zoellner, who bred and owns Crupper, will be debating a start in the Preakness.
Renegade, the current favorite for the May 2 Kentucky Derby, has been installed as the 10-1 favorite for a future wager pool tied to the May 16 Preakness Stakes at Laurel Park, according to the Maryland Jockey Club, which is administering the pool.
The Preakness Future Wager will open at noon on Friday and close approximately half an hour prior to post time for the Kentucky Derby on May 2. Only win betting will be allowed, and the minimum bet is $2.
Attendance at this year’s Preakness Stakes on May 16 at its temporary home of Laurel Park in Maryland will be limited to 4,800 people, according to 1/ST Racing and Gaming, the company responsible for putting on the race.
The limited amount of tickets is due to ongoing renovations at Laurel Park in preparation for the track’s conversion into a year-round training center. This year’s Preakness is being held at Laurel because the race’s home, Pimlico Racecourse in Baltimore, has been torn down and is being replaced by a more modern structure.
BALTIMORE - The connections of Preakness winner Journalism would like to run their horse in the Belmont Stakes on June 7 at Saratoga. As they did before the Preakness, they will wait for Journalism to indicate that he’s on board with that plan.
BALTIMORE - In deep stretch of Saturday’s 150th Preakness Stakes, trainer Michael McCarthy thought he was going to witness history repeating itself from two weeks ago in the Kentucky Derby.
Journalism, the athletic horse McCarthy trains, decided to rewrite history, overcoming significant trouble in upper stretch under Umberto Rispoli to run down a seemingly home-free Gosger and win the 150th Preakness at soon-to-be-demolished Pimlico by a half-length.
BALTIMORE – Journalism gets a do-over before Pimlico gets its makeover.
Journalism, second to Sovereignty as the favorite in the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago at Churchill Downs, gets a second chance to win a classic race when he starts as an even stronger favorite in Saturday’s 150th Preakness Stakes. This will be the last Preakness run at Pimlico before the grandstand is torn down and rebuilt with a target reopening of spring 2027. The 2026 Preakness is scheduled to be held at Laurel Park.
When the connections of Kentucky Derby winner Sovereignty decided just days after the colt’s win in the first leg of the Triple Crown to skip the Preakness Stakes, racing’s chattering classes leapt to the ramparts to resurrect calls for the Triple Crown schedule to be altered.
Unlike in previous years, however, there was no such spirited debate occurring in the executive offices of the companies that have stakes in the races.
While saying he wasn’t disappointed that Sovereignty was not running in Saturday’s Preakness Stakes, Michael McCarthy, trainer of Kentucky Derby runner-up Journalism, said he’d look forward to a rematch at some point in the future.
“Hopefully, Journalism stays healthy and Sovereignty stays healthy, and somewhere down the road, we get to hook up,” McCarthy said. “I think it’d be great for the fans, really great for the sport.”
McCarthy said it’s possible Journalism could run back June 7 at Saratoga in the Belmont Stakes, the race Sovereignty is targeting.
BALTIMORE – Different venue, same surface.
The sloppy track that was in play for the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago at Churchill Downs has greeted horsemen this week at Pimlico as preparations continued Wednesday morning toward Saturday’s 150th Preakness.
Led by Kentucky Derby runner-up Journalism, seven of the nine horses entered in the Preakness were on the main track Wednesday morning at Pimlico, most going at a controlled pace over an extremely wet surface.
