Triple Crown Races

Michael Phelps could very well become the greatest Olympian of all time but he says when he retires from swimming after the London Games, he plans to conquer a new sport: Horse racing. Phelps tells Yahoo that he's quite serious about buying a race horse with his longtime coach Bob Bowman. He tells the news organization that the two have discussed it repeatedly. In fact, he has his eye on Preakness 2014 -- if not the Triple Crown. "I think it would be cool," Phelps told Yahoo, adding that he hopes to hit all of next year's Triple Crown races as an observer, if not a shopper.

He kept coming back, year after year, horse after horse, trying to get another victory in the Preakness Stakes before he was done. Going into the 138th running of the Triple Crown's middle leg, D. Wayne Lukas had tried eight times since Charismatic won at Pimlico Race Course in 1999 - with 12 different entries. The best any of his horses could do was third place - twice - with Proud Citizen in 2002 and Scrimshaw in 2003. But as the 77-year-old Hall of Fame trainer pointed out after 15-1 shot Oxbow took the lead nearly out of the gates and held off Itsmyluckyday by 1 ¾ lengths to give Lukas his sixth victory in the Preakness, even winning a record 14th Triple Crown race was not going to change his career plans.

Look for the Triple Crown races to adopt the same stringent pre-race veterinary procedures that the Breeders' Cup instituted this year at Santa Anita Park.During race week, a team of veterinarians performed thorough daily examinations of all the horses in order to help insure there would be no catastrophic breakdowns on race day.There was grumbling from some trainers, but no one can argue with the results. The races went off without a hitch, there were no serious injuries and no grisly television pictures of a Union City or Prairie Bayou being carted off the track in a horse ambulance, incidents that marred the 1993 Triple Crown.

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.

Traitor, one of Maryland's hopes for glory in the Kentucky Derby or Preakness, was removed from the Triple Crown trail yesterday after showing signs of wear and tear from his demanding schedule.Mary Eppler, the colt's Pimlico-based trainer, said that, after discussions with the horse's owner, Alfred G. Vanderbilt, they have decided to give Traitor time off instead of pushing him toward the spring classics. He was to have raced Saturday in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct."He will not run in the Wood or any of the Triple Crown races," Eppler said.

LAUREL -- Long after the Triple Crown races that trainer Carlos Garcia had eyed hopefully, Super Cholo finally won a race as a 3-year-old yesterday.The triumph came at Laurel Race Course in the $54,825 Annapolis Handicap, at the expense of heavily favored Chas' Whim, who ran fourth, and second choice Country Day, who struggled in next to last in a seven-horse race.With Marco Castaneda aboard, Super Cholo dropped back to fifth on the final turn, then rallied to win by a nose over Temper Time.

As the man responsible for rebuilding Sagamore Farm shook hands with the son of the man who oversaw its halcyon days, Tiger Walk stood stoically in his stall. The other horses in the barn had long since poked their heads out in response to commotion created by television crews and a small gathering of reporters. Tiger Walk faced the other way, looking out his window. Kevin Plank, the Under Armour founder and CEO who bought Sagamore Farm in 2007, hopes Tiger Walk can remain unflappable.

To Michael Matz, Barbaro's legacy includes a recurring image. It is of the horse with all four feet off the ground. It is as if Barbaro is flying. It has been five years since Barbaro shattered a hind leg at the Preakness, beginning a poignant struggle to save the life of the runaway 2006 Kentucky Derby winner. He eventually suffered from laminitis and was euthanized the following January. At Churchill Downs, where the horse's ashes are buried, there is a bronze statue of Barbaro suspended by a rail so the horse is off the ground — just the way Matz sees him in full sprint in his mind's eye. But the trainer and others believe Barbaro's legacy is more extensive — and more complicated — than the 1,500-pound statue celebrating his breathtaking speed.

You don't have to be a horseman all your life, as 70-year-old former U.S. Senator Daniel B. Brewster has been, to know the answer.Neither do you have to be as well-traveled as ABC-TV's Jim McKay -- and McKay, in addition to broadcasting Triple Crown races for many years, owns a small Maryland stable of thoroughbreds.And you don't have to be a seasoned track official like Lenny Hale, the Maryland Jockey Club's president for racing, to be able to explain the tragic injuries that resulted in the humane destroying of Union City and Prairie Bayou in this year's Preakness and Belmont Stakes, respectively.

Bring back the bonus!That's the sentiment around Pimlico Race Course since connections to three of the main Kentucky Derby contenders -- runner-up Strodes Creek, fourth-place finisher Brocco and beaten favorite Holy Bull -- announced their horses would skip Saturday's Preakness Stakes to run in the Belmont.The trainers all want more than two weeks for their horses to recover from the strain of the Derby.Who can blame them?Now that the Chrysler Corp. has dropped the $1 million bonus that rewarded the horse accumulating the most points in the three-race series, a huge incentive to participate in all of the Triple Crown races has been eliminated.

When his first Kentucky Derby horse, Orb, was named the favorite Wednesday, Stuart S. Janney the III was not there to raise his hands triumphantly for the cameras. He won't be in Louisville at all in the days leading to the race. A short phone call with his trainer each day is all the northern Baltimore County resident requires. The rest, he'd rather avoid. "There's a lot of silliness that happens this week," he said Monday. "And I've got paperwork to catch up on. " Janney is instead in New York, where he spends much of his time at the 5th Avenue headquarters of the Bessemer Trust, the wealth management firm of which he is the chairman.

Under Armour founder and CEO Kevin Plank has aggressively marketed his company from the beginning, unabashedly challenging established titans like Nike, Adidas and Reebok. A man who often speaks in sports-centric slogans, it can appear at times that he runs his primary business with the fury of a soon-to-retire linebacker facing playoff elimination. But in his secondary pursuit, Plank has shown patience in a sport that, by nature, often destroys it. He has owned Sagamore Farm for seven years, rebuilding it gradually and allowing manager Tom Mullikan - an old high school buddy and football teammate - to methodically put together a breeding, training and racing program.

Michael Phelps could very well become the greatest Olympian of all time but he says when he retires from swimming after the London Games, he plans to conquer a new sport: Horse racing. Phelps tells Yahoo that he's quite serious about buying a race horse with his longtime coach Bob Bowman. He tells the news organization that the two have discussed it repeatedly. In fact, he has his eye on Preakness 2014 -- if not the Triple Crown. "I think it would be cool," Phelps told Yahoo, adding that he hopes to hit all of next year's Triple Crown races as an observer, if not a shopper.

- Now, he's the burgeoning star with a sly smile on his face and steady answer to every question, even as the weight of racing history should be pressing upon him. But when Glen Todd first met Mario Gutierrez six years ago, the owner and jockey communicated through "a sort of sign language and pointing. " "He was shy, in a totally new place, and very embarrassed about not speaking English," said Todd, the top owner of thoroughbred horses in Western Canada. "And he was very tough on himself.

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.

Over the past year, slots money has injected energy into Maryland horse racing. Revenue from the state's two casinos has bolstered purses, helping attract better horses and create more competitive races. The Preakness also is benefiting. Some of the weekend's undercard stakes races offer larger prizes, while the long-respected Pimlico Special returns with a $300,000 purse after disappearing for three years due to a lack of prize money. It's shaping up to be a good running for the Preakness this year.

Pimlico is generally a pretty casual place. But there will be a decidedly upscale look today in the corporate tent village in the Pimlico infield.Some 3,000 invited guests of various corporations will be roaming the village, dining on everything from Chesapeake Bay crab cakes with a lemon caper tartar sauce to jeweled fruit tarts and rum balls.Eighteen corporations and organizations are sponsoring tents in the village, which is fenced off and features its own posh portable bathrooms, betting windows and entertainment.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The first two legs of the Triple Crown - the Kentucky Derby and Preakness - will remain on NBC through 2010. A five-year deal among the network, Churchill Downs and Magna Entertainment Corp./Maryland Jockey Club was announced yesterday after speculation that the Preakness would end up on ESPN. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Joe De Francis, president and CEO of the Maryland Jockey Club, said that ESPN made a "very attractive proposal," but that the Preakness was better served by remaining on NBC with the Kentucky Derby.

As the man responsible for rebuilding Sagamore Farm shook hands with the son of the man who oversaw its halcyon days, Tiger Walk stood stoically in his stall. The other horses in the barn had long since poked their heads out in response to commotion created by television crews and a small gathering of reporters. Tiger Walk faced the other way, looking out his window. Kevin Plank, the Under Armour founder and CEO who bought Sagamore Farm in 2007, hopes Tiger Walk can remain unflappable.

The most visually stunning probable entrant in the upcoming Kentucky Derby could also become the favorite with a good showing at the Blue Grass Stakes this weekend. Hansen, a nearly all white colt trained by Mike Maker, is the 6-5 favorite in Lexington . He'll be challenged by Howe Great, trained by Maryland-based Graham Motion and owned by Team Valor International. Motion and Team Valor, of course, won last year's Kentucky Derby with Animal Kingdom, and have another possible Derby horse in Went the Day Well.