BALTIMORE - Frank Carulli received a rousing round of applause at the Preakness draw at Pimlico on Wednesday, when he revealed his final set of morning-line odds for the second leg of the Triple Crown. Carulli has been the oddsmaker and racing analyst for Pimlico and Laurel since 2002, but he will vacate his post at the end of June to move to Las Vegas.
“I’m semi-retired, I guess you could say,” said Carulli, 51.
BALTIMORE - Southern California-based trainer Doug O’Neill’s approach to this year’s Preakness with Goldencents follows some of the same stabling protocol he used last year with winner I’ll Have Another. He has had a 12-horse division at Pimlico Race Course since the Monday following the Kentucky Derby, a move made to simulate home for Goldencents.
“I wanted to have him settled in, where it’s as close to home as can be,” O’Neill. said
BALTIMORE - At Pimlico’s Alibi breakfast, Daily Racing Form national correspondent Jay Privman and the Form’s lead photographer Barbara Livingston were honored by the Maryland Jockey Club for their work at the 2012 Preakness.
Privman won the David F. Woods Memorial Award for the best Preakness story from the previous year. Privman wrote a profile of Derby- and Preakness-winning trainer Doug O’Neill. Privman also won this award in 2002.
BALTIMORE - While it is certainly noteworthy that only one horse has won the Preakness from the rail since 1961 – Tabasco Cat in the 1994 – the rail draw shouldn’t scare supporters of Orb to the nearest bridge.
BALTIMORE - The proceeds of a sponsorship deal between the connections of Kentucky Derby winner Orb and Maserati, the car company, will benefit two racing charities, Stuart Janney III announced Thursday. Janney co-owns Orb with his cousin Ogden Mills Phipps.
BALTIMORE – Visiting the backside at Pimlico Race Course Preakness week is nothing new for Stuart Janney III, who lives only a few miles away in a town named Butler.
Visiting the backside at Pimlico Race Course Preakness week as the co-owner/breeder of a Kentucky Derby winner is certainly a unique experience for the 64-year-old Janney.
LAS VEGAS – No sooner had Orb crossed the Kentucky Derby finish line two weeks ago than the talk turned to whether he has what it takes to become horse racing’s first Triple Crown winner since 1978.
I was only 6 when Secretariat captured the nation’s fancy in 1973, so it was Affirmed’s Triple Crown run five years later that gave me my real first exposure to the sport. Of course, with three Triple Crown winners in those six years, no one at that point in time (how’s that for a 1970s/post-Watergate Era reference?) could have predicted we would go on such a long drought.
BALTIMORE – Summer Applause bounced back from one bad effort earlier this year when she won the Grade 2 Top Flight at Aqueduct. Her connections hope she shows similar resilience in Saturday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Allaire duPont Distaff at Pimlico.
Summer Applause finished fourth in the Grade 1 Apple Blossom on April 12, a race in which trainer Chad Brown said his filly apparently “didn’t care for the surface” at Oaklawn Park.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Earl “Buzzy” Tenney, the longtime assistant to trainer Shug McGaughey, watched the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago from his Long Island home surrounded by family and friends.
Tenney, 61, admitted that a lot of people started “jumping around like kids” when Orb passed Normandy Invasion and splashed to a 2 1/2-length victory, giving McGaughey his long-awaited first Derby.
