BALTIMORE – Kenny McPeek has made a career out of proving the naysayers wrong, and the trainer did it once again Saturday when he sent out Swiss Skydiver to become just the sixth filly in history to win the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course.

“People said, ‘Why are you running her in there?’” said McPeek, who incurred criticism on social media and elsewhere for defying convention by entering Swiss Skydiver against males in the 145th running of the Grade 1, $1 million Preakness. “She’s an amazing filly, that’s why.”

Even though Miss Marissa has decent sprint speed, it’s going long that she’s been able to be far more effective, something her trainer, Jim Ryerson, explained well before the George F. Mitchell Black-Eyed Susan, and something that was proven when the race was run Saturday at Pimlico.

Miss Marissa had won her prior two starts, at Monmouth and Saratoga, going long in allowance company, and completed a hat trick on Saturday with a front-running score in the Grade 2, $250,000 race for 3-year-old fillies.

BALTIMORE – There’s no Triple Crown on the line Saturday with the 145th Preakness at Pimlico, but there’s still plenty at stake.

There’s an impending validation of the Kentucky Derby upset by Authentic, who figures as part of a front-running phalanx in a race with considerably more pace.

There’s the legacy of Bob Baffert, who could stand all alone as the winningest trainer in Preakness history if Authentic or his second starter, Thousand Words, can emerge victorious.

Factor This ran too good to lose last time, and well enough to win in his four starts prior. With better luck, he might be going for his sixth straight victory on Saturday in the Grade 2, $250,000 Dinner Party Stakes at Pimlico, but instead he’ll try to start a new streak, and he’ll be favored to succeed.

BALTIMORE – Authentic and Art Collector both were pictures of health Thursday morning at Pimlico, where they’ll go postward Saturday as the clear-cut favorites in the 145th Preakness Stakes, the final leg of the 2020 Triple Crown.

Authentic, winner of the Sept. 5 Kentucky Derby, galloped about a mile and three-quarters with regular exercise rider Beto Gomez aboard. The track was fast after having been sloppy Wednesday morning. No rain is expected through the coming weekend.

Bob Baffert had run in the Kentucky Derby 19 times previously, and had won it five times, but the lead-up to this year’s race, he said, felt different. How could it not? The Derby was being run four months after it was originally scheduled, owing to a pandemic, in a city riven by the police killing of a woman in her home months earlier.

“It didn’t feel like the Derby,” Baffert said, “until the gates opened. Then it felt like it. It was on.”

BALTIMORE – Authentic and Art Collector got a feel for the Pimlico track Wednesday morning for the first time as the days dwindle down toward the 145th Preakness.

Brian Hernandez Jr. is usually in the right spot, but on Kentucky Derby Day, through no fault of his own, he had a tough trip. Earlier in the week, his Derby mount, Art Collector, had to be scratched from the race with a minor hoof injury, depriving Hernandez of what would have been his best chance yet to win the Derby.

BALTIMORE – It was a $5,000 maiden-claiming sprint on a forlorn Friday afternoon at Beulah Park in March 1998, and Tommy Drury was rooting for a horse as if there was no tomorrow.

“A friend of mine drove up with me that day,” Drury can recall, “and we screamed like crazy people from the sixteenth pole home.”

Saddle Me Up Clint, an 18-1 shot, was up in the last jump to become Drury’s first winner as a trainer in nearly 2 1/2 years. His most recent prior win had come in November 1995.

“Those were some tough times,” Drury said. “Real tough.”

Between the two of them, trainers Bob Baffert and D. Wayne Lukas have won the Preakness Stakes 13 times, and they’ve amassed 30 Triple Crown race wins. That’s a lot of success and experience to bring to hand for one horse, and this year they’ve combined forces for the final leg of the out-of-order 2020 Triple Crown, with Authentic.