Preakness Field

Orb's path to the finish line in the second leg of the Triple Crown remains uncrowded. Normandy Invasion, the fourth-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby, dropped from contention for Saturday's 138th running of the Preakness on Sunday. Trainer Chad Brown and owner Rick Porter decided to stick with their original plan and point the horse toward prestigous races for 3-year-olds later in the summer. That leaves Orb, the colt co-owned by Baltimore County resident Stuart Janney III and Ogden Mills "Dinny" Pipps' stable, with only seven confirmed challengers at this point.

Shug McGaughey, the trainer for Kentucky Derby winner Orb, attributes his calm demeanor since that race to maturity. Had he made it to the Preakness with a Triple Crown chance at a younger age, the 64-year-old insists, the scene would have been different. The kindly man in a sweater, face almost always softened in a sort of bemused wonderment, would be replaced by a high-strung, short-tempered barn general. Orb co-owner Stuart Janney III knows McGaughey feels some pressure. "Before the Derby, he had no color in his face," he said.

Some years, Maryland Jockey Club stakes coordinator Coley Blind has to turn horses away from the Preakness.  He and other members of the staff may look through the credentials of 20 horses, calculating their earnings -- the Preakness uses a fairly complicated three-tiered system -- to determine the 14-horse field. Not this year. As of Friday afternoon, connections for only seven horses had confirmed they planned to enter the race, and five others had been identified as strong possibilities.

It's (mostly) official: Govenor Charlie will run in the Preakness. Maybe. Trainer Bob Baffert told Pimlico officials Tuesday morning that he planned to run the colt, listed as “possible” since skipping the Kentucky Derby. But later in the afternoon he tweeted that the colt wouldn't be confirmed for a Preakness run until he boarded a plane from Louisville on Wednesday. The addition of the Baffert trainee would bring the field to nine and the number of new challengers for Orb to three.

It's (mostly) official: Govenor Charlie will run in the Preakness. Maybe. Trainer Bob Baffert told Pimlico officials Tuesday morning that he planned to run the colt, listed as “possible” since skipping the Kentucky Derby. But later in the afternoon he tweeted that the colt wouldn't be confirmed for a Preakness run until he boarded a plane from Louisville on Wednesday. The addition of the Baffert trainee would bring the field to nine and the number of new challengers for Orb to three.

At some point, tradition must cede to sensibility. A long and storied history cannot take precedence over an endangered and uncertain future, not when so much is on the line. While The Jockey Club has admirably convened a committee to study the health and safety of its racehorses, there's something the Maryland Jockey Club could push for immediately: It's past time the Triple Crown calendar was tweaked to move the Preakness Stakes, slated for Saturday at Pimlico, back at least one week.

I'll Have Another's path to the Triple Crown will be crowded. His competition at the Preakness, the second leg, could include the five horses who followed him across the line at the Kentucky Derby. That hasn't happened since 1958. In fact, the last time even the top five Derby finishers all raced in Baltimore was 1992. Bodemeister, the pacesetter and runner-up last Saturday, remains undecided. Trainer Bob Baffert - a five-time winner of the Preakness - is in California and does not plan to visit Bodemeister or Derby sixth-place finisher Liason until the weekend.

Every spring the morning after the running of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness officials make the rounds of the Churchill Downs barns issuing personal invitations to the owners and trainers of the Derby horses to run in the Preakness Stakes. Then Preakness officials sit back, wait and hope the owners decide to overlook the short two-week gap between the two Triple Crown races and bring their horses to Baltimore instead of sending them to another high-paying race or awaiting the Belmont Stakes, five weeks away.

Shug McGaughey, the trainer for Kentucky Derby winner Orb, attributes his calm demeanor since that race to maturity. Had he made it to the Preakness with a Triple Crown chance at a younger age, the 64-year-old insists, the scene would have been different. The kindly man in a sweater, face almost always softened in a sort of bemused wonderment, would be replaced by a high-strung, short-tempered barn general. Orb co-owner Stuart Janney III knows McGaughey feels some pressure. "Before the Derby, he had no color in his face," he said.

Frank Brothers was so disappointed after Hansel finished 10th in the Kentucky Derby, he couldn't get out of Louisville fast enough.He and the horse were gone by 6 a.m. the next day.Now Hansel has resurfaced.Brothers phoned Pimlico officials yesterday and said the colt whose broodmare sire is the good old Maryland stallion Dancing Count, is coming to the Preakness.The colt worked three-eighths of a mile so sharp at Arlingto Park near Chicago yesterday that Brothers thought the horse deserved another shot in a Triple Crown race.

Orb's path to the finish line in the second leg of the Triple Crown remains uncrowded. Normandy Invasion, the fourth-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby, dropped from contention for Saturday's 138th running of the Preakness on Sunday. Trainer Chad Brown and owner Rick Porter decided to stick with their original plan and point the horse toward prestigous races for 3-year-olds later in the summer. That leaves Orb, the colt co-owned by Baltimore County resident Stuart Janney III and Ogden Mills "Dinny" Pipps' stable, with only seven confirmed challengers at this point.

Some years, Maryland Jockey Club stakes coordinator Coley Blind has to turn horses away from the Preakness.  He and other members of the staff may look through the credentials of 20 horses, calculating their earnings -- the Preakness uses a fairly complicated three-tiered system -- to determine the 14-horse field. Not this year. As of Friday afternoon, connections for only seven horses had confirmed they planned to enter the race, and five others had been identified as strong possibilities.

LOUISVILLE, KY. - This year, Doug O'Neill and his assistants sat in the office at a barn in the far corner of the Churchill Downs backside. Few reporters dropped by, and O'Neill was not asked repeatedly to relive the running of the Kentucky Derby a day before. Last year's winning trainer, with I'll Have Another, O'Neill instead convened with his robust team to discuss plans for the 138th Preakness Stakes, scheduled for May 18 at Pimlico. Their Derby horse, Goldencents, finished 17th.

[UPDATE] Tom Chuckas, the president of the Maryland Jockey Club, said he "does not see the need to change" the way the Preakness field is selected. -------------- The path to the Kentucky Derby has changed. Since 1986, graded stakes earnings have been the key to any horse hoping to qualify for the field of 20 in Kentucky. But Churchill Downs, which owns and operates the race, has introduced a new method for ranking horses in an attempt to make the preliminary stages of the chase for the Triple Crown easier to understand.

Kevin Plank can't help himself. The Under Armour CEO might know, in his heart of hearts, that his horse is a long shot against the world's finest 3-year-old thoroughbreds. His farm manager, Tom Mullikin, describes the dark bay colt as more "grinder" than star. But Plank's own rise, from blindly ambitious college kid to billionaire apparel mogul, is an underdog tale. So he can't help but play Joe Namath and talk big about his colt's chances in the 137th Preakness Stakes. "Tommy, did you guarantee on Tiger Walk?"

I'll Have Another's path to the Triple Crown will be crowded. His competition at the Preakness, the second leg, could include the five horses who followed him across the line at the Kentucky Derby. That hasn't happened since 1958. In fact, the last time even the top five Derby finishers all raced in Baltimore was 1992. Bodemeister, the pacesetter and runner-up last Saturday, remains undecided. Trainer Bob Baffert - a five-time winner of the Preakness - is in California and does not plan to visit Bodemeister or Derby sixth-place finisher Liason until the weekend.

Another day, another Preakness horse. Yesterday, Galloping Grocer joined the field for the 130th Preakness on May 21 at Pimlico. That brings the horses planning to run to 10 and leaves the horses who might run at five. The field is limited to 14. Galloping Grocer is a New York-bred who won his first three starts and then battled Rockport Harbor gamely in the Remsen Stakes. Galloping Grocer finished second by a neck for the first of five straight setbacks. John Shirreffs, trainer of Kentucky Derby winner Giacomo, said he welcomes the competition.

Two new starters, Careful Gesture and My Luck Runs North, joined the burgeoning Preakness field yesterday, making life a bit complicated for Canadian trainer Roger Attfield.Attfield conditions Alydeed, the highly regarded but lightly raced grandson of Nijinsky II. Alydeed won the Derby Trial at Churchill Downs, but Attfield skipped the Derby with the intention of running the colt in the Preakness.Now, it looks as if Alydeed could get bumped from the Preakness and instead be running Saturday in the Illinois Derby at Sportsman's Park in Cicero, Ill.Attfield is concerned that Alydeed might be dropped from the Preakness lineup because he has only $120,252 in earnings.

Animal Kingdom, winner of the Kentucky Derby, took an early-morning walk around Barn 22 at Churchill Downs on Monday as he prepared to spend his last day of the spring in Louisville. "We are going to leave early, sometime around 5:30 or 6," assistant trainer Dave Rock said of the journey to the Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland. "He is doing good and eating good, as always. " The van ride to Maryland was expected to take 11 to 12 hours. Animal Kingdom will prepare for the Preakness at Fair Hill and ship to Pimlico Race Course a day or two before the May21 race.

Pimlico Race Course Concealed Identity finishes strong to win Tesio Stakes Linda Gaudet and Morris Bailey's Concealed Identity sat off a contested pace, went by the leaders going around the turn and continued home under a hard drive Saturday to win the $75,000 Federico Tesio Stakes, the feature offering for possible Preakness starters at Pimlico Race Course . Sent to post at 7-1 odds under leading jockey Sheldon Russell...