Derby Winner

Team Valor International, owner of 2011 Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom, has announced that Maryland-based trainer Graham Motion is once again hoping to prep the horse for a run in the $10 million Dubai World Cup next spring. Animal Kingdom finished a charging second in the Breeders' Cup Mile on Nov. 3, despite not racing for 259 days while recovering from a small fracture -- his second such injury since the 2011 Belmont. The colt stood in Motion's barn in Fair Hill for the beginning of the year, as Motion trained his best 3-year-olds toward this year's Kentucky Derby.

In his bid to win horse racing's elusive Triple Crown, I'll Have Another today was named a 4-5 favorite for Saturday's Belmont Stakes. Immediately after the No. 11 post position and odds were announced, I'll Have Another's connections tweeted, "We drew post # 11 -- Brilliant. " Trainer Doug O'Neill said after the draw, "Unbelievable ride. Whole journey is just because of the great I'll Have Another. " O'Neill left minutes later to oversee his horse's acclimation to the new Belmont Stakes Barn.

Bodemeister will hang on Joseph Schwerdt Sun Sentinel Had the Kentucky Derby (at 1 1/4 miles) been the same length as the Preakness Stakes (1 3/16 miles), we might be talking about Bodemeister winning the Run for the Roses. But that last sixteenth of a mile was just enough for I'll Have Another to win at Churchill Downs. This time around Bodemeister will hold off the challenge to take the Preakness and we'll have to wait yet another year for a Triple Crown winner.

Doug O'Neill took a seat under a small awning, in front of cameras and reporters Wednesday morning. After a week and a half of passing time chatting with the few stragglers who came by his barn, it was time for the Kentucky Derby winning trainer to face the horde in town for Saturday's Preakness. He took questions on his record - he's had a history of horses breaking down, and has been charged four times with “milkshaking” a horse - and was asked again about how his colt, I'll Have Another, will do this time around against Bodemeister, the runner-up at Derby.

Almost immediately, there was talk of lucky numbers. Kentucky Derby winner I'll Have Another drew the No. 9 post at the draw for the 137th running of the Preakness. After his horse raced from the 19th position -- and became the first to win from that spot -- in Kentucky, Doug O'Neill saw no problem. "Anything with a nine is fine for us," the gregarious trainer of I'll Have Another said. Bodemeister, meanwhile, drew the seventh spot. That, friends joked with trainer Bob Baffert, could work; his son Bode, after all, is 7 years old. But when the talk of good fortune and happy circumstance subsided, slivers of evidence revealing how the race will be run were left.

You would never know the Preakness Stakes is just four days away. At Pimlico's Barn D, current base of trainer Doug O'Neill and his team of assistants and workers, Tuesday was as light as could be. A couple of guys set off in the van, only to run out of gas not far from the track. They ended up having to push it to a nearby gas station. This came only after a long, spirited discussion about who had the keys. Other highlights of the morning included a visit from the team that cares for the Budweiser Clydesdales, and O'Neill admitting that he's not a big fan of steamed crabs.

Kentucky Derby winner I'll Have Another is one regal-looking horse, a real show-stopper with a distinctive white, diamond-shaped patch on his forehead. As he moved around a back barn at Pimlico Race Course on Wednesday, the chestnut colt trained by Doug O'Neill made the other horses look like fly-ridden plow nags. Now the question is: is he just another attractive Derby winner that will wilt in the pressurized environment of the Preakness a week from Saturday? Or can he duplicate the amazing run he had at Churchill Downs five days ago and make the Preakness special by giving us a legitimate Triple Crown hope?

As Kentucky Derby winner I'll Have Another vanned out of Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport with a police escort Monday afternoon, he was greeted by local horse fans trying to make him feel instantly at home. "People were lined up and chanting, 'I'd love another,'" said assistant trainer Jack Sisterson, who accompanied the horse on a flight from Louisville, Ky. "His ears are pricked and he's bobbing his head, 'Yeah, that's me!'" At Pimlico Race Course , cameras from local television stations were lined up along print media to record the arrival of the gorgeous, Doug O'Neill-trained chestnut as he came off the trailer and pranced to his stall.

Why is Doug O'Neill, trainer of Kentucky Derby winner I'll Have Another, not accompanying his horse to Baltimore today to begin preparation for the May 19 Preakness? Does he not know of our reputation for crab cakes? Has he not heard that the hottest team in baseball plays just a few miles from Pimlico? Is he offended that the drinking preference of race-day patrons swings so drastically from fine bourbon to even finer Boh for the second leg of the Triple Crown? O'Neill, a trainer who has the look and mannerisms of a high school football coach in his native Michigan, is back in California.

Originally, trainer Doug O'Neill had planned to keep Kentucky Derby winner I'll Have Another at posh Churchill Downs. But during a long night of celebrating - O'Neill, predictably enough, copped to uttering the name of his horse many times to the bartender - the California trainer and the colt's connections decided otherwise. He will ship to Pimlico Monday and is expected to arrive around 5 p.m. to prepare for the Preakness, second leg of the Triple Crown. “We just figured getting over there and getting settled in would be a good idea,” O'Neill said this morning, at a mostly quiet track.