Kentucky Derby

The last man to take a horse to Belmont with a chance to snag the elusive final gem in the Triple Crown has some advice for Doug O'Neill. Stay true to the horse. "I think trainers going around asking other people what they should do, looking for how to handle it, that's stupid," Rick Dutrow, trainer of Big Brown in 2008, said in a phone interview Sunday. "It's got to be about your horse. Whatever anybody else did doesn't matter. You know your horse. " O'Neill, trainer of Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner I'll Have Another, has already disregarded common wisdom over the past three weeks.

Kent Desormeaux will not ride Dullahan in the Belmont Stakes June 9, the Des Moines Register reported Monday . Javier Castellano, who leads all jockeys with $7.9 million in earnings this year, will replace the three-time Kentucky Derby winner. Desormeaux has struggled with alcohol problems in the past and failed a breathalyzer test last Friday at Belmont Park. He was pulled off Tiger Walk for the Preakness Stakes. “We are confident that Kent will address his issues and be back at the track better than ever and we hope to ride him when that happens,” Donegal president Jerry Crawford told the Register.

All along, they had been so relaxed. So when it came time for Team O'Neill's horse to make his charge -- a historic one -- the colt moved forward almost nonchalantly. I'll Have Another glided past Bodemeister to win the 137th running of the Preakness Stakes on Saturday at Pimlico Race Course, setting up a chance at the first Triple Crown since 1978. The California-based horse is the 12th to win the first two legs of the Triple Crown since Affirmed edged Alydar in all three races.

Twenty-seven-old Minju Kim from Seoul, South Korea, found the early races a big yawn, so she and her friend Jieun Yi of Philadelphia stopped by the volleyball field. "For me, it's not that interesting," Kim said. She is visitig Yi, who is originally from Seoul, for a month. It is her first time in the United States. Yi married into a family full of horse racing fans. Today is her second trip to Preakness. She visited all three races last year, and said she perfers the Kentucky Derby for the outfits.

Mike Smith appeared dazed in the moments after his horse, Bodemeister, was again beaten by Kentucky Derby winner I'll Have Another - this time by a neck in Saturday's Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course . The veteran jockey wore the frozen smile of a man hardly able to fathom what had just transpired. "I swear I don't know how he ran me down, man," Smith said after trainer Bob Baffert approached in the fading sunlight. "You did a good job," the 59-year-old trainer told the 46-year-old jockey, a fellow Hall of Famer and former Preakness winner who recently passed 5,000 career victories.

Deputed Testamony is 32-years-old. His dark brown coat is shaggy, and his biggest excitement is going into his paddock at Bonita Farm for three or four hours of grazing each day. He is a pensioner, an icon. The oldest living winner of a Triple Crown race. But when Billy Boniface looks at the horse in his paddock, he sees the striking colt that was born and trained at the family farm and raced to victory in the 1983 Preakness - the last horse bred or trained in Maryland to do so. "Oh my gosh, I still get goose bumps when I look at him and remember that day," said Boniface, who was 18 then and had just taken over the breeding operation at the farm.

Rick Dutrow knows there's a difference coming into Preakness with a horse that has won the Kentucky Derby and one that didn't even make it to the starting gate at Churchill Downs. If anything, it might be a little easier for Dutrow coming to Pimlico for Saturday's race with Zetterholm than it was four years ago with Big Brown. "When you win the Derby, you have to ship to Baltimore and have to get ready to run in two weeks," Dutrow said by cell phone from New York earlier this week.

About 7 p.m. Saturday, 25-year-old Mario Gutierrez was escorted by a group of handlers and police officers into the paddock at Churchill Downs. The sign over his head, the one touting the 138 years of Kentucky Derby history by listing the first and last winners, had already been changed to read: I'll Have Another. Gutierrez became the 42nd jockey to win in his first try at the Derby, guiding the long-striding colt past 4-1 morning line favorite Bodemeister in the final furlong, winning by 11/2 lengths.

Patrick Jensen bet $200 on Triple Crown contender Big Brown at the Preakness this year, but he hasn't cashed in any of his winning slips. Instead, the Mount Airy resident is selling the $2 win tickets on eBay, along with programs and collectible Kentucky Derby drinking glasses. "It's kind of my way of gambling," Jensen, 38, said. The hope that Big Brown will win the Belmont Stakes today and become a Triple Crown winner has spurred the dreams of fans of thoroughbred racing - as well as those in the collectibles industry.

D. Wayne Lukas has had plenty of success with horses running in the second leg of the Triple Crown. His five career wins at Pimlico's featured event speak for themselves. But this year, Lukas decided to take a slightly different approach. His horse, Optimizer, will be using Saturday's Preakness as an opportunity to prepare for the Belmont Stakes in June, the longest of the Triple Crown races - one Lukas thinks the colt has a better shot at winning. Lukas made a switch at jockey, giving the mount to Corey Nakatani to get the new rider some experience before the final leg of the Triple Crown three weeks from Saturday.

Mike Smith appeared dazed in the moments after his horse, Bodemeister, was again beaten by Kentucky Derby winner I'll Have Another - this time by a neck in Saturday's Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course . The veteran jockey wore the frozen smile of a man hardly able to fathom what had just transpired. "I swear I don't know how he ran me down, man," Smith said after trainer Bob Baffert approached in the fading sunlight. "You did a good job," the 59-year-old trainer told the 46-year-old jockey, a fellow Hall of Famer and former Preakness winner who recently passed 5,000 career victories.

All along, they had been so relaxed. So when it came time for Team O'Neill's horse to make his charge -- a historic one -- the colt moved forward almost nonchalantly. I'll Have Another glided past Bodemeister to win the 137th running of the Preakness Stakes on Saturday at Pimlico Race Course, setting up a chance at the first Triple Crown since 1978. The California-based horse is the 12th to win the first two legs of the Triple Crown since Affirmed edged Alydar in all three races.

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.

Jerry Bossert-New York Daily News Bodemeister. He's the main speed in a shorter distance, which I think will play to his favor. Daddy Nose Best Creative Cause Jennie Rees-Louisville Courier-Journal I'll Have Another. He's versatile as well as good. Bodemeister Cozzetti Tim Wilkin-Albany Times-Union I'll Have Another- Derby winner will run down Bodemeister at the end again. Creative Cause Bodemeister Tim Layden-Sports Illustrated Bodemeister.

Last year, 8.8 million viewers saw NBC's coverage of the Preakness. That's the kind of big-tent mass audience that makes the race one of Baltimore's showcase events. And that doesn't count the hundreds of thousands who will watch pre- and post-race coverage on the NBC Sports Network cable channel. But how Baltimore is seen by all those eyeballs largely depends on how NBC Sports chooses to cover the race and related events starting Saturday at 2:30 p.m on NBC Sports Network. NBC's network coverage of the race starts at 4:30 p.m. and runs until 6:30 p.m., with a closing half hour from 6:30 to 7 on NBC Sports Network.

Rick Dutrow knows there's a difference coming into Preakness with a horse that has won the Kentucky Derby and one that didn't even make it to the starting gate at Churchill Downs. If anything, it might be a little easier for Dutrow coming to Pimlico for Saturday's race with Zetterholm than it was four years ago with Big Brown. "When you win the Derby, you have to ship to Baltimore and have to get ready to run in two weeks," Dutrow said by cell phone from New York earlier this week.

A singular piece of metal is the only evidence that it ever existed; a small, dull, jagged, piece of red hardware."These were the lips," he tells me. "Each time, I've kept the lips."Take these lips. Build a blue-black face around them. Add some big white eyes. Embellish with a cap of wiry dark hair. Put that head on a squat compact body with an outstretched arm.Now, you have the thing this used to be.This used to be a lawn jockey, an accessory of the most manicured American front yards.My visitor and I spent nearly an hour trying to agree on its worth.

An Awesome prediction Kevin Van Valkenburg Baltimore Sun Want to know who's going to win the Kentucky Derby? First thing you have to do is throw out the favorite, Lookin At Lucky. Lookin At Lucky has made a living fighting through traffic, but in a 20-horse field, drawing the rail post is too much to overcome. Sidney's Candy is no Big Brown, so drawing the outside post means he's not going to do it either. Put your money instead on Awesome Act, who likes a muddy track and should get a great trip.

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.

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.