Preakness Field

Two heavily backed favorites, Cigar and Concern, will face four other older stakes winners, including Devil His Due, Saturday in the $600,000 Pimlico Special.The field of six horses was pre-entered yesterday, making this the third consecutive year that the Special has drawn a small, though select, field.Cigar will be seeking his seventh consecutive win, four of those victories having come in Grade I company. The 5-year-old Bill Mott-trained horse is undefeated since he was switched from grass to dirt in New York last fall.

You knew the Preakness had gotten lucky when Kenny Smith put a sly smile on his face yesterday morning at Pimlico."I promise you," said Smith, the trainer of a Preakness horse named Silver Goblin, "they will know we were here."You knew the Preakness had gotten lucky when Hugh Robertson stood on the grass behind the stakes barn grazing his horse and shaking his head."It's kind of a bad break," said Robertson, the trainer of Polar Expedition, "getting a good horse in a year like this. A year when it's so hard to make a dent."

Smilin Singin Sam, who finished 10th in the Kentucky Derby, might join the field for the 119th Preakness Stakes.Pimlico vice president of racing Lenny Hale said yesterday he had been contacted by the horse's owner, Cot Campbell of Dogwood Stable, about the possibility of his horse running in Saturday's race."

A new horse might be joining the Preakness lineup.Trainer Nick Zito said yesterday that he is considering running Too Wild in Saturday's race.The 3-year-old son of Wild Again accompanied Zito-trained Strike the Gold to Pimlico from Belmont Park, but was originally expected to run in the Sir Barton Stakes on the Preakness card.However, Zito said it's possible that he'll try the Preakness."He's an improving colt and ran a strong race last time when he was second in the Cahill Road Stakes [to Koluctoo Jimmy Al]

The prospective Preakness field gained another front-running candidate yesterday when New York trainer Bruce Levine said he intends to start Koluctoo Jimmy Al.The quick New York-bred, 6 1/2 -length winner of the Cahill Road Stakes at Aqueduct in wire-to-wire fashion on April 17, joins Personal Hope and Cherokee Run as possible Preakness pacesetters.These three horses plus Kentucky Derby winner Sea Hero -- as well as Prairie Bayou, Wild Gale, Union City, El Bakan and Woods of Windsor -- are considered likely starters.

Break out the suntan lotion, but don't forget the umbrella -- just in case.Today's showers will give way to partly sunny skies and pleasant temperatures for tomorrow's running of the 117th Preakness, forecasters say.However, rain will not be out of the question, forecasters said. There's still a slight chance of an afternoon shower or thunderstorm."They've had temperatures in the 80s and 90s some years in that infield," said Fred Davis, chief meteorologist with the National Weather Service at Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

Kentucky Derby winner Lil E. Tee and the two Derby runners-up, Casual Lies and Dance Floor, arrived yesterday at Pimlico Race Course looking fresh, relaxed and none the worse for wear after a 1-hour, 20-minute flight from Louisville, Ky.They seemed to have come out of the grueling 1 1/4 -mile Derby in surprisingly good shape.But the bottom line is this: The Preakness is going to be a vastly different horse race than the Derby, and they'd better have their running shoes on Saturday.The new ingredient is speed, and "the horse everyone is looking at is Alydeed," said Lynn Whiting, trainer of Lil E. Tee.There was no true speed horse in the Derby, and the result was a plodding, lethargic pace.

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.

Hey, dude, have you heard they moved the Preakness to Hollywood Park?Or am I just California Dreamin'?It's the "Surf's Up!" Preakness, the year Pimlico decided to have the race and imported the horses, trainers and jockeys from La-La Land.Usually there is at least one hometown runner -- the Fighting Notions, I Am The Games or Harrimans -- from the local outfits.But this year there's none, unless Forty Something, the last-place finisher in the Derby who now-and-again is bedded down at Laurel, suddenly surfaces.

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.