Trainer

May. 18, Post Time: 10:45AM Entries and comments provided by the Maryland Jockey Club First - Purse $55,000, AOC $25,000-$20,000, 3 yo's & up, One And One Sixteenth Miles Post, Horse, Jockey, Trainer, Odds 1 Aussi Austin, Rosario, R.Rodriguez, 3-1 2 Bob's Gone Wild, Vargas, J.Lopez, 20-1 3 Jarrod's Commando, Karamanos, C.Garcia, 10-1 4 Warrensburg, Boyce, D.Barr, 20-1 5 Benny Or Local, Cruise, D.Kobiskie,...

May. 18, Post Time: 10:45AM Entries and comments provided by the Maryland Jockey Club First - Purse $55,000, AOC $25,000-$20,000, 3 yo's & up, One And One Sixteenth Miles Post, Horse, Jockey, Trainer, Odds 1 Aussi Austin, Rosario, R.Rodriguez, 3-1 2 Bob's Gone Wild, Vargas, J.Lopez, 20-1 3 Jarrod's Commando, Karamanos, C.Garcia, 10-1 4 Warrensburg, Boyce, D.Barr, 20-1 5 Benny Or Local, Cruise, D.Kobiskie,...

With nearly every eye at Pimlico fixated on either the uncatchable leader, Oxbow, or the Kentucky Derby winner and heavy betting favorite, Orb, Itsmyluckyday cruised under the radar to earn a little bit of redemption in Saturday's Preakness. After failing to challenge Orb on the muddy track at Churchill Downs two weeks ago and finishing near the back of the pack, Itsmyluckyday finished in second place in the middle jewel of the Triple Crown. "We did run our race, but we just weren't lucky enough to win," trainer Eddie Plesa Jr. said.

The colt was a knucklehead, really. He had speed and endurance in his pedigree, but if you had polled his owners and his trainer a year ago, none would have predicted that he'd gallop in the same steps as his great-grandsire, 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew. When the gates dropped on his first race, Orb did not even break. Second race? Same thing. He did not win until the fourth and final race of his two-year-old campaign. But where other colts might level off or become erratic, Orb seemed to get better every day. “I've never seen anything like it,” said his trainer, Claude “Shug” McGaughey, who has been in the thoroughbred game more than 40 years.

Bob Baffert strode into the Preakness stakes barn Friday morning, shouting toward Orb's trainer Shug McGaughey loud enough so all could hear. "OK, Shug, I'm here to take away that media spotlight for you," he said. Baffert, indeed, is one of the few people in the sport who could have swiped some of the attention from McGaughey and his heavily favored colt this week . Baffert has won the Preakness five times, and on three occasions he's moved on to Belmont with a chance at the Triple Crown.

In the first week of her reporting internship for a horse-racing newspaper, Gabby Gaudet nervously approached one of the most celebrated figures in the sport. "Can you tell me how you first got involved in the game?" she asked Kelly Breen, who trained the winner of the 2011 Belmont Stakes. "Terrible question. Get back to me when you think of a better one," he replied.  She flinched but thought fast. "How about if I ride your horse?" she asked. He said yes, they fell to talking, and the story she wrote ran above the fold in The Saratoga Special.

In 1977, Mick Jagger first sang, "Start me up, I'll never stop."Now, at 54, as the Rolling Stones begin their "Bridges to Babylon" tour, the legendary rocker has proved that phrase was more than a lyric. It's a way of life."He's lean, he's athletic, he's out there running around like a 16-year-old," says Greg Isaacs, corporate fitness director for Warner Bros. and personal trainer for celebrities including Melanie Griffith and Goldie Hawn. "I doubt he eats cheeseburgers every day."Other aging acts, such as the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, have hit the road lately as well.

A Texas Tech athletic trainer told university officials he did not agree with Mike Leach's treatment of receiver Adam James after the player was diagnosed with a concussion. In an affidavit released Saturday by the university, Texas Tech trainer Steve Pincock said he told James he was "sorry" for having placed the player inside an equipment shed near the practice field. On Dec. 21, Pincock spoke with Tech officials, telling them that he did not agree with that "form of treatment for anyone" and that Leach "wanted James to be uncomfortable."

Bill Tessendorf, the longtime Ravens trainer who retired last month, was recognized Monday night by the Ed Block Foundation as part of its sponsor appreciation kickoff dinner. It's an honor that touched Tessendorf because it came from an organization named after the longtime head athletic trainer of the Baltimore Colts. "I'm awestruck because the man that it's named after, I got to know and meet," Tessendorf said Monday night. "It also means I've been around for a long time.

Horse racing Sham trainer 'Pancho' Martin dead at 86 Hall of Famer Frank "Pancho" Martin , the trainer of Sham, who finished second to Secretariat in the 1973 Kentucky Derby and Preakness, died Wednesday night at his home in Garden City, N.Y., after a brief illness. He was 86. During a career that spanned more than 60 years, the Cuban-born Martin saddled 3,240 winners worth more than $47.5 million, including champions Autobiography, who won the Eclipse Award as the nation's top older horse in 1972; Outstandingly, 1984's top 2-year-old filly; and Sham, who won the 1973 Santa Anita Derby.

The one-liners never stop when you're around Team O'Neill. Sometimes all that's missing is a brick wall, a stool and a microphone stand. Take the other day, for instance. Jockey Kevin Krigger has Goldencents out for his regular morning gallop in preparation for Saturday's Preakness. Trainer Doug O'Neill and his crew are watching it from the press box high atop Pimlico Race Course . As Krigger walks the Santa Anita Derby winner onto the track, the jockey looks up and waves.

D. Wayne Lukas, the Hall of Fame trainer, has started 37 horses in the Preakness. He expects to have three more - Will Take Charge, Oxbow and Titletown Five - go to the post Saturday for the 138th running of the middle jewel of the Triple Crown. Does Lukas like Pimlico? Indeed he does. "I do like it here. We've only missed two, maybe only one in the last 33 years," Lukas said as he waited to accompany one of his horses to the track Wednesday morning. Standing just outside the stakes barn, Lukas was outfitted in his usual jeans, chaps, boots and spurs and a 10-gallon hat. Waiting patiently nearby was his stable pony Diamond, a reminder that while Lukas may have revolutionized the sport of horse racing with some of his methods, he's still a throwback when it comes to others.

A few low, indecipherable noises escaped from the table where Shug McGaughey, trainer of even-money Preakness favorite Orb, sat during the post-position draw Wednesday. The horse had drawn the dreaded No. 1 gate, meaning eight horses will be closing him in as they race toward the shortest path to the first turn. McGaughey, though, was not among those who thought this meant anything significant. “Some people groaned,” he said. “I didn't groan.” McGaughey acknowledged a preference to start on the outside of the field - where both the jockey and horse can watch the field open up - but said he thought drawing the rail simply didn't matter in a nine-horse field running over a mile and three-sixteenths.

In the first week of her reporting internship for a horse-racing newspaper, Gabby Gaudet nervously approached one of the most celebrated figures in the sport. "Can you tell me how you first got involved in the game?" she asked Kelly Breen, who trained the winner of the 2011 Belmont Stakes. "Terrible question. Get back to me when you think of a better one," he replied.  She flinched but thought fast. "How about if I ride your horse?" she asked. He said yes, they fell to talking, and the story she wrote ran above the fold in The Saratoga Special.

Doug O'Neill is back in Baltimore, this year to spoil a Triple Crown instead of take the next step toward winning one. A year after bringing I'll Have Another to Baltimore just two days after winning the Kentucky Derby, then frantically absorbing as much of Baltimore as he and his crew could before winning the race, the Southern California trainer arrived Sunday to join this year's entry, Goldencents. The mood around the same Barn D stalls he occupied last year was more workmanlike Monday, even after O'Neill watched the disappointing 17th-place Derby finisher roar down the Pimlico stretch under jockey Kevin Krigger.

LOUISVILLE, KY. - Trainer Shug McGaughey came to his barn Sunday morning before the sun had cleared the horizon, as he has done most days for more than 35 years. Dozens of people were gathered there, under the roof, dodging the rain and trying to get a look at Orb, who won the 139th Kentucky Derby on Saturday. The colt munched on hay and observed the scene. He let some girls come pet him and get their picture taken. Orb came out of the mile-and-a-quarter Derby, run over a drenched Churchill Downs track, with no signs of injury or fatigue and will officially begin preparing for a run in the 138th Preakness Stakes on May 18. McGaughey was shuffled from interview to interview, often saying that he still had trouble describing the feeling of winning his first Derby.

Trainer Phillip Mitchell has been suspended 60 days by the Rosecroft Raceway judges for medication violations for four horses.Judge Gary McCarthy said the horses were treated with Terbutaline, an illegal bronchial dilator.McCarthy said Mitchell, based in Delaware, blamed a defective nebulizer, or vaporizer, for the violations, which occurred on the Jan. 20 and Jan. 23 Rosecroft programs.

Hall of Fame trainer Laz Barrera, who saddled Affirmed, the most recent Triple Crown winner, died early yesterday after being hospitalized with pneumonia. He was 66.A native of Cuba who had a 40-year training career in Cuba, Mexico and the United States, Barrera died at Rio Hondo Hospital in Downey, Calif., at about 1:30 a.m.Barrera entered the hospital Wednesday night. Barrera's son, Larry, said his father had been ill for about two days.Affirmed, the 1978 and 1979 Horse of the Year, was the winner of a series of famed stretch duels with Alydar in the 1978 Triple Crown.

The story of Monte and Patrice Sanders just might be the classic fitness fairy tale. Girl hires trainer. Sparks fly over sit-ups. Trainer turns boyfriend, then fiance, then husband. Healthy, happily ever after. As Baltimore's newest power couple approach their first anniversary, they're closer than ever, indulging in candid displays of public affection, embarking on projects together, thinking about expanding their family and, after a fairly hushed courtship, talking about how a news anchor fell for a celebrity trainer.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Standing outside of his barn at Churchill Downs, leaning against a temporary fence that seems more invitation that blockade, D. Wayne Lukas is as much a Kentucky Derby fixture as spilled bourbon and bad bets. The Derby takes thousands of horses in their 3-year-old years and whittles them down to a field of 20 through a series of races run across the country, and no trainer has been there at the end more often than Lukas. His two starters entered in Saturday's race, 30-1 Oxbow and 20-1 Will Take Charge, would be his 46th and 47th.