Horse Racing News is the source of thoroughbred racing information with horse racing odds, betting tips, racing picks, race results, and handicapping. Latest news and articles on top horse racing contenders, jockeys, trainers, three-year-olds, race tracks, and major stakes races such as the Triple Crown races: the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes as well as the Breeders' Cup horse races.Preakness Stakes Notes: Big Brown Works
Posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008
With regular exercise rider Michelle Nevin aboard and dozens of still and video cameras recording every step, the Kentucky Derby winner Big Brown galloped 1 1/2 miles Thursday morning at Pimlico.
“It went good,” trainer Richard Dutrow Jr. said. “I was very happy with it. He was comfortable, cool, relaxed, galloped good. We’re as happy as we can be right now.”
Dutrow said he is holding up well to the pressure of bringing the Kentucky Derby winner to Baltimore to compete in the Middle Jewel of the Triple Crown, the 2008 Preakness Stakes 133.
Horse trainer Richard Dutrow grew up in Maryland, where his late father, Dick Dutrow, was a prominent trainer. He said he is enjoying returning to his home state with the 1-2 morning-line favorite for the Preakness.As a native Marylander, Dutrow knows all about the state’s biggest race.
“I went to a lot of Preaknesses here when I was young,” he said. “We went into the infield a lot of times. Dad always won a race here on Preakness Day. I can’t remember when he didn’t win a race that day. He always had 10 in so he was going to win something.
“The Preakness is a huge race and anybody would love to win it. It’s very exciting for us because we won the Derby. We’re looking to run big here in this race and hopefully carry it on to New York.”
On several occasions since the Kentucky Derby victory on May 3, Dutrow has talked about how he dislikes running a horse back in 14 days. He covered that topic again Thursday in a press conference at the Preakness Stakes Barn.
“There is no way anybody can tell how their horse is going to run in two weeks” Dutrow said. “You don’t have time to train ‘em, breeze ‘em a few times, but since he’s come out of the Derby, up to this minute, I’m very, very happy with the horse. He’s just done everything that you would want a horse to do coming out of a race like that. He hasn’t missed an oat. He’s aggressive with his gallops. It’s all good.
“I don’t know how he’s going to run with the two weeks, but I’m certainly not going to dismiss him, I can tell you that.”
Dutrow prefers a quick turnaround or a long time between races for his horses.
“I don’t like two weeks,” he said. “I like running them back in three, four or five days or 30-40 days. But that’s just me and doesn’t mean that Big Brown won’t like it. He seems like he’s on his game, so I’m sure he’s going to show up the right way.
“He’s a lightly raced horse. He’s only got four starts. It’s not like he had five or six starts as a 2-year-old and this is his fifth or sixth start this year. This might work to his advantage. We’ll see.”
Big Brown drew post 7 in the 13-horse field. The colt won the Florida Derby and the Kentucky Derby from the farthest outside posts under jockey Kent Desormeaux, but Dutrow said that starting from the middle of the field should not pose any problems.
Behindatthebar
The Lexington Stakes winner remained at trainer Todd Pletcher’s barn at Belmont Park, home of the 2008 Belmont Stakes, Thursday. Pletcher plans to ship Behindatthebar from New York on Saturday morning.
The son of Forest Wildcat, Behindatthebar, will be making his second start on dirt and first since finishing fifth, beaten 4 1/2 lengths, in the El Camino Real Derby (G3) at Bay Meadows on March 8. Co-owner Don Stanley of Henderson, Nev., said that the colt got himself in some trouble that day. Stanley said that Behindatthebar has shown a tendency to want to run closer to the rail, but that jockey David Flores is aware of that habit.
Behindatthebar has won two straight on synthetic surfaces for horse trainer Todd Pletcher. The colt turned in a strong five-furlong work on the dirt at Belmont Park Sunday and Pletcher said that performance made him think Behindatthebar would handle racing on dirt.
Stanley said that his partner, Michael Shustek, named the colt as a joke about being behind on a bar bill.
Gayego
The Arkansas Derby winner jogged once around the Pimlico oval Thursday after shipping cross-country from his Southern California base on Wednesday.
Gayego will wear small blinkers in the Preakness.Paulo Lobo, who trains on the Southern California circuit, is scheduled to fly to Baltimore Thursday afternoon and will supervise Gayego’s morning exercise Friday morning.
Giant Moon
Thursday morning, trainer Richard Schosberg sent the New York-bred Giant Moon through what is a typical routine a couple of days before a race: a two-mile jog and a trip to the starting gate for schooling.
Schosberg said he received a phone call from the Pimlico starter to talk about preparing Giant Moon for the Preakness
“In big races like this, they just want to make sure that everything goes according to plan as best as possible,” Schosberg said.
“I school horses before they run almost every time. It doesn’t matter how old they are. I think it just really gets their juices flowing. It lets them know that race time is coming soon. They get in there and relax and it’s like, `Hey man, I’m really, really close to a race.’ It gets them ready.”
Giant Moon will start from post 11 in the field of 13. After the post-position draw Wednesday evening, Schosberg said he did not like the post. Thursday, he was more philosophical.
“It is what it is,” he said. “In a double-blind draw like that you get what you get. With all of the terrible things going on in the world, the monsoons and the earthquakes and the tornados here in the states, the post position I got in the Preakness, it seems a little ridiculous to get upset about. It is what it is. Maybe it will work out for us. We’ll see.”
Giant Moon will ship to Baltimore Friday morning. He will be ridden by jockey Ramon Dominguez, one of the top jockeys in Maryland and the Mid-Atlantic region.
“There are probably three riders in this race that know this racetrack like the back of their hand. Ours is one of them, and (Kent) Desormeaux and (Edgar) Prado are the others. These guys cut their teeth on this racetrack.
“Certainly Ramon knows his way around there and the best part of the track, and he knows my horse. I think we’ve got everything going as best we can. We’ll see what happens Saturday afternoon.”
Hey Byrn
The Holy Bull Stakes (G3) winner Hey Byrn galloped 1 1/2 miles under exercise rider Peter Shelton Thursday morning at Pimlico in preparation for his foray into the Triple Crown campaign Saturday.
Hey Byrn’s owner, Beatrice Oxenberg, will celebrate her 87th birthday Friday in Baltimore, where she will visit with nieces and nephews.
“If you asked her, she’d probably say (racing her horses) is the most important part of her life right now,” said trainer Eddie Plesa Jr., who will saddle Hey Byrn for a start in the Preakness. “Every time she has a horse in, she’s at the races. She just drives her car and goes to the track.”
Plesa has trained for South Florida’s grand dame of thoroughbred racing and her late husband, Bernie, for 25 years.
“Trainers can look back, the older you get, and say, ‘I had this person for this much time, this person for this much time, this person for this much time. She’s been with me for all that time that I’ve had horses for a lot of different people,” Plesa said. “She’s a wonderful person. Her husband was the nicest, kindest person I’ve met in my life.”
Although Hey Byrn drew the No. 13 post, which has never produced a winner in the Preakness Stakes, Plesa is confident that his colt has the ability to get a good trip Saturday.
“He’s what you call a push-button horse. He’ll do what you want him to do. He’s not one-dimensional. He has the tactical speed to lay where you want him,” he said. “The jockey can direct him any way; he’s not going to run off with him. He’s a very versatile horse. He’s probably one of the most versatile horses I’ve ever trained.”
Hey Byrn, who finished fourth behind Big Brown in the Florida Derby after encountering bumping at the start, has won his three other races this year. Although his trainer has been impressed with the Florida and Kentucky Derby winner, he’s not ready to concede that he’s a great horse yet.
“People are saying, ‘Is he a great horse?’ That remains to be seen,” Plesa said. “One of the signs that will tell us is when we look back at the horses that he ran against in the Derby and Preakness and some of these other races. What have they done after that? Are they just a bunch of ordinary horses and he’s just the best of the bunch? Or are they good horses and he’s a champion? Time will tell.”
Icabad Crane
The Federico Tesio Stakes winner Icabad Crane galloped 1 1/2 miles under Xavier Aizpuru at Fair Hill Training Center Thursday morning for his return visit to Pimlico.
In the Tesio, the New York-bred colt worked his way through traffic to get up to narrowly prevail over Mint Lane in his first trip to Pimlico. Icabad Crane will need a better trip under jockey Jeremy Rose to earn a return visit to the winner’s circle Saturday. Trainer Graham Motion expects the No. 3 post position should help.
“Jeremy would have chosen 1, 2 or 3 if he had his choice. Jeremy feels it’s important for him to save ground,” said Motion, whose colt will ship to Pimlico early Saturday morning.
Kentucky Bear
Trainer Reade Baker, who arrived Wednesday from Toronto, was with his lightly raced son of Mr. Greeley Kentucky Bear Thursday morning after another stamina-building gallop around the Pimlico oval.
“He galloped a mile and a half and then he went to the gate and backed out,” said the 61-year-old Canadian, admittedly an old-school trainer. “I like to do that with horses when they’re going to different places because there are a lot of different (gate) manufacturers and they look different to them. Sometimes they hesitate when they’ve never been in them before.”
This will be Kentucky Bear’s third different race track in four starts. He broke his maiden at Gulfstream Park before finishing a troubled seventh in the Fountain of Youth (G2) in only his second career start. Baker said bucked shins kept him from racing as a 2-year-old.
Kentucky Bear was third in the Blue Grass (G1) at Keeneland, beaten only 1 1/2 lengths for all the money after having some problems changing leads the first time under jockey Jamie Theriot.
Baker figures both Theriot and the colt learned something from that experience.”I don’t give instructions,” Baker said. “He’s a smart kid; he’ll figure it out. I just think he thought he had enough horse that he could just go with those horses anytime he wanted. He didn’t want to do that because you’ve got the wolves (Pyro) right behind you coming to run down everybody. You don’t want to open up and then have him come and nail you.
“Well, Pyro never showed up. Those other guys in front (Monba and Cowboy Cal) were sitting on a little bit of horse. I don’t think he (Kentucky Bear) has got that. He’s got some wonderful attributes, but that explosion thing isn’t it. If you watch his maiden race, he’s going fast all the way. That’s what he does. He goes at that pace and he keeps going; that’s the difference between him and a regular horse.”
This will be the first Preakness mount for jockey Jamie Theriot, who has worked his way from the minor-league circuit to become a successful rider at tracks like Oaklawn Park, Keeneland and Churchill Downs.
Kentucky Bear will break from post 8 for Baker and Bear Stables, who will also be represented by Bear Now in the $150,000 Allaire DuPont Stakes (G2) in the race preceding the Preakness.
Macho Again
The Derby Trial winner Macho Again galloped 1 1/4 miles on the morning after arriving from his Churchill Downs base on Wednesday.
Impressed with the manner in which his colt overcame trouble and closed in the late yards to catch Kodiak Kowboy in the Trial, trainer Dallas Stewart is confident that Macho Again is ready for the challenge of running in the Preakness.
Stewart has saddled two Preakness horses: Dollar Bill (4th in 2001) and Kimberlite Pipe (8th in 1999). While serving as an assistant to Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, he was a frequent visitor to Pimlico with several Preakness runners.”Probably the one that stands out the most – she didn’t win – was Winning Colors, who finished third. I was quite attached to her,” said Stewart, referring to the 1988 Kentucky Derby winner who finished third after being pressed by Forty Niner throughout the Preakness. “The other horses I was on the ground with, I wasn’t on their backs. I was on her back.
“I think she was tired after the Derby. The Derby is a really tough race on a horse, a really tough race. The horses that come back and win here are special. Flipping it back the other way, we had other horses that didn’t run good in the Derby. We had Tabasco Cat; he got hit real hard leaving the gate, so he didn’t put out and run hard. He came back and won here. Timber Country, he was last at the quarter pole. He ran only a quarter of a mile (to finish third). He came here and won. Going back to Winning Colors, she ran her eyeballs out there and won. She came here and had some trouble, but she wasn’t as good here as she was in the Derby. That Derby will take something out of a horse.”
Racecar Rhapsody
Former jockey Jose Castanon, now an assistant to trainer Kenny McPeek, gave the Tale of the Cat colt, Racecar Rhapsody, his first trip around the Pimlico track Thursday morning. The bay was shipped from Louisville, Ky. to Maryland Wednesday.
“I took him out about 7:30 and I jogged him one mile and galloped him one mile,” Castanon said. “It feels like he can handle this track very well.”
Castanon said Racecar Rhapsody had no problems adjusting to his new surroundings.
“This horse is kind of calm,” Castanon said. “He doesn’t get scared. He just goes for it. He doesn’t look around much.”
Riley Tucker
The last time Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott saddled a horse in the Preakness, Willie Shoemaker was his jockey. That was 24 years ago, and even the immortal “Shoe” couldn’t get Taylor’s Special home ahead of Gate Dancer. Mott’s colt finished fourth.
Mott may have an even tougher task on Saturday when Riley Tucker tries to upset Kentucky Derby winner Big Brown in Preakness 133. The son of Harlan’s Holiday is listed at 30-1 in the morning line.
“You have to try, don’t you?” said Mott assistant Leana Willaford, who put Riley Tucker through his first exercise on the Pimlico track since he arrived by van after a 4 1/2-hour trip from Belmont Park on Wednesday. “It’s back quick for him (two weeks since Big Brown’s Derby). We’ve got a little fresher horse.”
Riley Tucker, who hasn’t run since finishing third in the Lexington Stakes (G2) on April 19, seemed to enjoy his time on the track Thursday.
“I just backed him up at the three-eighths pole and jogged him off the right way, galloped him around down past the wire and then galloped him another mile and a quarter,” Willaford said. “Then I rode him through the paddock. He’s good.”
Mott is expected to be at the barn Friday and saddle morning-line favorite Prussian in the $75,000 Woodlawn Stakes on the grass. He has been overseeing Riley Tucker’s training in New York.
Jockey Edgar Prado, one of the great riders in Maryland history, will be aboard Riley Tucker for the Preakness.
Stevil
Trainer Nick Zito seemed perfectly comfortable with the calm and quiet outside Stevil‘s stall at the end of the Preakness Stakes Barn Thursday morning as the hordes of media stalked his celebrated opponent, Big Brown, directly across the shedrow.
“He just galloped today, an easy gallop,” said Zito, who has occupied Stall 40 before with his own Derby winners (Go for Gin and Strike the Gold). “He’s doing great. I was happy with the post (No. 9), so everything’s good.”
Stevil figures to be one of the longest shots in the field at post time, and Pimlico oddsmaker Frank Carulli installed the roan son of Maria’s Mon at 30-1 for owner Robert LaPenta. Zito believes he can outrun those odds.
“He’s very consistent,” said the Hall of Fame conditioner, who has run 18 other 3-year-olds in the Middle Jewel of the Triple Crown. “He’s going to run a good race; he always runs a good race. I’d be surprised if he didn’t run a good race, knock on wood. He should be in the money.”
None of the connections of any of the other 12 starters have Triple Crown race experience comparable to Zito, who has also won a Belmont Stakes (Birdstone) and a Preakness (Louis Quatorze) to go with his Kentucky Derby winners.
“The story here is without question Big Brown,” Zito said. “I’m a fan of the game, too, and I just hope we run a good race and get close and then try to beat him in the next town. But to say anybody on paper is going to beat Big Brown is going to be a hard stretch. However, they don’t run on paper; they run on dirt. We have to run the race and see what happens.”
Jockey John Velazquez will be aboard Stevil for the first time on Saturday. He finished fifth on Circular Quay in last year’s Preakness, his first mount in the race.
Tres Borrachos
Trainer Beau Greely led the third-place finisher in the Arkansas Derby, Tres Borrachos, onto the track Thursday morning shortly after the renovation break for some light work two days after his final blowout at Churchill Downs.
“He just jogged today,” said Greely of the field’s lone gelding. “He was on his toes and feeling fresh. He’d have done a lot more had we let him. He’ll gallop tomorrow and just walk into the race.”
Tres Borrachos, a son of 1999 Kentucky Derby also-ran Ecton Park (12th), had his speed compromised in the Arkansas Derby by Gayego, but Greely is hoping he’ll get the right trip Saturday.
“I think the track’s going to suit him,” Greely said. “He’s run his best races on dirt. There are a little tighter turns here or so they tell me. I think with the 2-hole, it came up good for him.”
Greely, a Lexington native who was spoon-fed the glitz and glamour of the Kentucky Derby, said he appreciates the calmer atmosphere surrounding the Preakness.
“I’ve run in all the Triple Crown races, and coming here the hospitality is phenomenal,” he said. “The people here are nice and it’s a little more laid-back. It’s enjoyable.”
Tres Borrachos has earned a check in his last three stakes starts, but seems to have stepped up his speed figures in his last two on traditional dirt surfaces. Greely believes he belongs.
“They’re all nice horses, and I think it’s going to be interesting to see Big Brown break out of the 7-hole instead of the outside,” he said. “He might get knocked around a little bit, who knows? He might not be used to that. He hasn’t had as much seasoning as some of the others, so we’ll see what happens.”
Yankee Bravo
Trainer Paddy Gallagher reported that Yankee Bravo showed no ill effects from a Wednesday cross-country flight during his first tour of the Pimlico racetrack Thursday morning.
“He galloped around slow and looked around,” said Gallagher, who has never saddled a horse at Pimlico. “He’s the kind of horse that nothing bothers after he gets a chance to settle in.”
Yankee Bravo, who finished third in the Louisiana Derby (G2) at Fair Grounds in his only start on a conventional dirt track, will be ridden by jockey Alex Solis.
Edited from www.preakness.com.
"Preakness Stakes Notes: Big Brown Works" was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 11:28 pm and is filed under Horse Racing Industry, Horses, Pimlico Track, Preakness Stakes, Race Tracks News, Stakes Races, Triple Crown, USA Horse Racing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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