BALTIMORE – A surprise 13th horse for the Preakness was revealed Wednesday morning at Pimlico when trainer Dale Romans entered Everfast in the second jewel of the Triple Crown.
Everfast, owned by Calumet Farm, surely will be one of the longest shots in the Preakness field after most recently finishing fifth by 10 1/4 lengths in the Pat Day Mile on Kentucky Derby Day. Joel Rosario will ride.
Michael McMahon and Jamie Hill were destined to keep the Tapit colt who eventually became Preakness contender Bourbon War.
McMahon and Hill race under the banner Bourbon Lane and pinhook under the banner Spruce Lane. Bourbon War, the first foal out of the Grade 1 winner My Conquestadory, was purchased as a yearling for $410,000, with the idea of pinhooking him the following September.
At the Keeneland auction, he failed to meet his reserve of $550,000 as the bidding stopped at $525,000.
Mark Casse said all winter that people would be talking about the colt he trains, War of Will, after the Kentucky Derby.
Casse was right, but not in way he meant and hoped.
War of Will has become the most famous eighth-place Derby finisher during the two weeks between Derby and Preakness.
Casse, owner Gary Barber, and jockey Tyler Gaffalione dreamed of War of Will draped with a blanket of Derby roses. Instead, the Derby first-place finisher Maximum Security was draped all over War of Will at the five-sixteenths pole.
It was tough, but for most of the muddy mile and a quarter of the 145th Kentucky Derby on May 4 at Churchill Downs, Mike Smith tried hard not to think about how much Omaha Beach would have enjoyed the day. The son of War Front won a maiden race by nine lengths in the slop at Santa Anita, then added the Arkansas Derby under similar conditions.
Such history was rendered moot when Smith’s morning-line Derby favorite was scratched the Wednesday before the race. Omaha Beach cleared his throat and Richard Mandella got the message, then made the call to Smith with the bad news.
This Saturday, television viewers of the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore will see something not often, if ever, seen at the track on the day of its biggest race, the second leg of the Triple Crown. Nearly half of the grandstand at Pimlico will be empty.
BALTIMORE – Market King arrived at Pimlico Race Course at 3:15 p.m. Tuesday for his intended start in the Preakness Stakes on Saturday, accompanied by Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, his staff, and Lukas’s pony.
Lukas said the van left Churchill Downs at 5 a.m. and that the drive was uneventful.
"It was a real good trip," Lukas said. "There was no traffic. He ate on the way and didn't turn a hair."
BALTIMORE – The weather forecast for Preakness Day calls for temperatures in the mid-70s under cloudy skies, which should translate to a fast track. That scenario is just fine for jockey Julian Pimentel and trainer Mike Trombetta, who will team up with Win Win Win, the 10th-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby over a sloppy track that he didn’t relish.
BALTIMORE – War of Will, the powerful-looking, high-energy War Front colt, who finished eighth but was elevated to seventh after almost falling on the far turn of the Kentucky Derby, was the lone Preakness probable on the Pimlico grounds as of Tuesday morning, but he was expected to have company by nightfall.
D. Wayne Lukas on Tuesday vanned Market King from Churchill Downs to Pimlico and arrived at 3:15 p.m.
"It was a real good trip," Lukas said. "There was no traffic, he ate on the way, and didn't turn a hair."
The third week in May began with the fervent prayer on everyone’s lips that Saturday’s 144th running of the Preakness Stakes would transpire without the words “inquiry” or “objection” becoming part of the post-race conversation, and that the identity of the Pimlico stewards would remain anonymous outside their immediate families.
The sport remains badly hung over from the disqualification of first-place finisher Maximum Security in the Kentucky Derby. Hung over, as in blurred vision, cotton mouth, throbbing head, and promises on bended knee that it will never ever happen again.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Brad Cox hasn’t spent a whole lot of time in Maryland. Based primarily in the Midwest, the 39-year-old trainer has traveled to Pimlico twice, Laurel Park once, and the Timonium sales a few times. One of his most enduring memories – the crabcakes at Michael’s, the popular restaurant located right across York Road from the Timonium fairgrounds.
“Amazing,” Cox said.
