HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Red Route One became a stakes winner Saturday when he came rolling for a head win over Tapit Shoes in the $200,000 Bath House Row at Oaklawn Park.
It was another half-length back in third to favorite Victory Formation.
Red Route One came into the race as one of the top 3-year-olds at Oaklawn, having run second in both the Grade 3 Southwest and Grade 2 Rebel. He also represented himself well in graded stakes starts as a 2-year-old.
The owner of Pimlico Race Course plans to offer as many as 40 horses in a parimutuel future bet for the track’s Preakness Stakes this year, the acting president and general manager of the track said Thursday.
The Preakness Future Bet will open April 28 and close about 6 p.m. Eastern on May 6, about a half-hour prior to the scheduled post time of the Kentucky Derby, according to Mike Rogers, who oversees racing at Pimlico for the track’s parent company, 1/ST Racing. It will be the first parimutuel future bet offered on the Preakness.
Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore will run nine stakes races on May 20, the day of the Preakness Stakes, the track announced Tuesday, and hold another six stakes, including the Black-Eyed Susan, on the day prior.
The 15 stakes will have total purses of $3.5 million, including $1.5 million for the Grade 1 Preakness Stakes, the middle leg of the Triple Crown. On the same day of the Preakness, Pimlico will hold eight other stakes, four of them Grade 3 races – the $200,000 Dinner Party, the $200,000 Chick Lang, the $100,000 Gallorette, and the $100,000 Maryland Sprint Stakes.
Creative Minister, by Creative Cause, continued a solid spring for the Airdrie Stud stallion roster as he finished third in the Preakness Stakes.
Grade 1 winner Creative Cause, third in the 2012 Preakness, entered stud at the Jones family’s Airdrie in 2013. The son of Giant’s Causeway is also the sire of Grade 1 winner Pavel and graded stakes winners Identifier, My Boy Jack, Significant Form, and Skyler’s Scramjet.
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Canadian champions who have gone on to be successful broodmares continued to make an impact on this spring’s Triple Crown series, as Preakness Stakes winner Early Voting extended the legacy of his granddam, the late Silken Cat.
Early Voting is out of the unraced Tiznow mare Amour d’Ete, whose dam is Quebec-bred Silken Cat. A late Storm Cat mare, Silken Cat earned a Sovereign Award as a Canadian champion and went on to produce Eclipse Award champion Speightstown.
BALTIMORE – Preakness Stakes victor Early Voting continued the remarkable ascent into North America’s elite sires for Horse of the Year Gun Runner, who now has an American classic winner to boast from his record-setting first crop.
There was no time for celebration for jockey Jose Ortiz, who won his first Preakness Stakes on Saturday aboard Early Voting at Pimlico. Following the post-race interview session and a shower, Ortiz and his family jumped in the car and drove back to New York, getting home around 1 a.m. Sunday.
“I guess my adrenaline was high because I didn’t get sleepy and when I got home I couldn’t fall asleep,” Ortiz, 29, said Sunday morning. “Everything was sinking in last night when I got to bed. It was very emotional because this is what we work for and to get it done is amazing.”
BALTIMORE – Early Voting headed out of Pimlico early Sunday morning, the Preakness Stakes victory safely tucked away, and with major races this summer his next goals, trainer Chad Brown said Sunday.
Brown, as he intimated Saturday right after the Preakness, said Early Voting would not run in the Belmont Stakes, the final leg of the Triple Crown on June 11 in New York. Brown said he would instead be pointed to the Travers Stakes on Aug. 27 at Saratoga, with a prep in either the Jim Dandy at Saratoga on July 30 or the Haskell at Monmouth on July 23.
Betting on Saturday's Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore was down 5 percent compared to the record wagering on the race last year, according to charts of the races. The decline was most likely due to the absence both of this year’s Kentucky Derby winner and the intense publicity surrounding the second leg of the Triple Crown last year.
BALTIMORE - In the Kentucky Derby, it was shock. In Saturday’s Preakness, it was disappointment.
Trainer Steve Asmussen left Pimlico on Saturday evening bitterly disappointed after Epicenter, surprisingly second-to-last through the opening half-mile, rallied to finish second, 1 1/4 lengths behind Early Voting in Saturday’s 147th Preakness Stakes at Pimlico.
