Win The Preakness

If a one-time claiming horse could win the Kentucky Derby, then why not the Preakness and -- for that matter -- the Triple Crown?Long-shot Derby champion Charismatic charged to the lead on the final turn and sprinted home with the second jewel of horse racing's Triple Crown yesterday in the 124th Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course.Police estimated the crowd at 100,311, the largest in history, with 65,000 packing the infield. It was a perfect afternoon for Baltimore's signature sporting event.

Although Lemon Drop Kid won't run in the Preakness, look for him in the Belmont.Trainer Scotty Schulhofer and Maryland owners Jinny Vance and Laddie Dance say they haven't lost confidence in the colt. They just want to preserve him for races later this season."It's a long year," Schulhofer said from his barn at Belmont Park. "And he's a young horse."A May 26 foal, Lemon Drop Kid had a rough trip in the Blue Grass Stakes, finishing fifth, and an even rougher trip in the Kentucky Derby, finishing ninth.

A Preakness without Bob Baffert?That seems almost unthinkable after Baffert trainees Silver Charm and Real Quiet captured the last two runnings of the Triple Crown's middle jewel. But it's a real possibility in the aftermath of the disappointing, 4-5-11 finishes of his three Kentucky Derby entries.General Challenge (11th) was shipped home to California. Excellent Meeting (fifth) will stay in Kentucky. Prime Timber is at Churchill Downs, but still on the fence. And the outstanding filly, Silverbulletday, will come here with a rider, but isn't certain to run.Baffert will wait until workouts Monday in Kentucky before deciding the agenda of Prime Timber, who raced wide with a host of others in the Derby before rallying for fourth money.

They were telling me yesterday about a Baltimore man at Johns Hopkins Hospital who has been battling cancer for nearly two years.A lot of us know someone in this position -- someone who is undergoing radiation treatments, going in and out of the hospital, clinging to life.A family friend thought about the terrible ordeal the patient and his family are going through."It just shows you once again that you can't take life and good health for granted," he said. "Most of us make that mistake and do take them for granted."

If the Correction Factor has merit, there is no use putting any of your money on Thunder Gulch tomorrow in the Preakness.If the Correction Factor has merit, Timber Country will cross the finish line first.That, again, is if the Correction Factor has merit.Which it does, sort of.If you haven't heard of the Correction Factor, don't worry. I just made it up.Actually, I just gave it a name. It is a Triple Crown handicapping theory that has become increasingly popular in the '90s.With merit, sort of.The theory, basically, is that the best horse in the Kentucky Derby wins the Preakness.

So the Preakness gets under way, and there's this one horse who must have thought he left his lights on, because he makes a right turn and heads for the reserved parking lot on Rogers Avenue.If you had your program in front of you, you could have guessed that the wayward horse was Numerous, out of the No. 10 post. Otherwise, if you were just Joe or Josephine Viewer watching ABC's coverage of the Preakness yesterday, you were on your own.In fact, it wasn't the best of days for ABC's analyst and race caller, Dave Johnson.

Mack Miller is confident he'll win the Belmont Stakes with Kentucky Derby winner Sea Hero.But he's not so sure about the Preakness."It is going to take an awful lot of luck to win this one," Miller said. "With this horse's enormous stride and the large sweeping turns [at the New York track], it's the Belmont that is our cup of tea."The 71-year-old trainer, and his wife, Martha, arrived at Pimlico Race Course for the first time yesterday afternoon and immediately checked in on Sea Hero.Miller added that he is "cautiously optimistic" about the horse's chances Saturday, mainly because Sea Hero has recovered so well from his winning race in the Kentucky Derby.

Before Baltimore became a renaissance city, at a time when the harbor had more debris floating about than could be found in a junkyard and wandering men down on their luck used doorways to sleep off the results of the night before, there was a magnificent mayor named Thomas D'Alesandro Jr.He came from a prideful neighborhood, Little Italy, and never left because he didn't want anyone to think he wanted to get above his raising.The Baltimore mayor had heard much about what was going on in Pittsburgh, the largest of the smoke-stack metropolises, that was then in the throes of making itself over.

John Ed Anthony was reminded of a movie yesterday when he became the first owner in 45 years to repeat as Preakness champion."I'm fond of something I saw in a movie one time. [There was] the old Indian in 'Little Big Man.' He laid down to ask the gods to take him to heaven and it didn't happen, so he got up and he says, 'Well, sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn't,' " he said.The magic worked yesterday, as Prairie Bayou followed in Pine Bluff's footsteps and won the Preakness for Loblolly Stable.

IN ALL MY YEARS of attending the races, the best handicapper I ever knew was Capt. Frank Case, a former ship master, who had come ashore to open a nautical instrument shop on South Gay Street, then Baltimore's principal maritime thoroughfare.The captain always maintained that, next to the Chesapeake blue crab, the Preakness was the best thing Baltimore had going for it. In his opinion it was the greatest horse race in the country, one for which the Kentucky Derby was merely a proving ground for 3-year-olds to establish their right to compete in the Preakness.

Rachel Alexandra, America needs you in a big way. When's the last time the country got this excited about a female? I'll tell you when: Susan Boyle. Boyle, of course, was the Scottish spinster with the frumpy clothes and bird's-nest hair who wowed everyone last month with her million-dollar voice on the TV show Britain's Got Talent. Millions of us watched that stirring Internet clip of her singing "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables. She captured our imagination, this Plain Jane whose talent and grit overcame her physical limitations.

Joe De Francis, the Maryland Jockey Club's chief executive officer, was all smiles at the Preakness Stakes draw yesterday, not at all put off by suggestions made during the ESPN broadcast that poor sportsmanship was being shown by the majority of trainers who chose not to bring their Kentucky Derby horses to the Preakness. "I think the problem was that Barbaro was so dominant trainers didn't want to face him again," De Francis said. "It's always a mixed blessing - or a double-edged sword - for a horse to win the Derby as easily as he did. The positive is that it generates excitement and enthusiasm for the Triple Crown among a lot of average spectators and the negative is it's very much tougher to convince the 19 trainers behind him to take him on in the Preakness.

Malibu Moonshine may have run his way into the Preakness yesterday. Aided by a slow pace and a compact field, the chestnut colt proved he could handle 1 1/8 miles, overtaking front-runner Hello Jerry in deep stretch to capture the $150,000 Federico Tesio Stakes, the feature on the Spring Festival of Racing at Pimlico Race Course, by three-quarters of a length. The performance could be a steppingstone into the middle jewel of the Triple Crown, although trainer King Leatherbury is not committing just yet. "We'll evaluate this effort and then decide later," said Leatherbury, 72 years old and third on the all-time list with 6,070 wins.

The focus shifts from horse to horse before the Kentucky Derby. Before the Preakness, it locks onto one. The Derby winner arrives at Pimlico Race Course a celebrity. His task is clear: Win the Preakness, the second leg of the Triple Crown, so he can move ahead to Belmont Park with a chance for immortality. Five times in the past seven years, the Derby winner has stormed into Baltimore and snared the Preakness, only to lose the Belmont three weeks later. And racing is deprived of another Triple Crown winner.

Tom Keyser's comments USS Tinosa He was a highly regarded Kentucky Derby contender until finishing fifth in the Santa Anita Derby. He encountered much trouble in that race, and then he was excluded from the Derby because of insufficient earnings. He's ready now, and he could light up the board with a late charge against tiring front-runners. Magic Weisner What else can be said about this Cinderella horse? Longtime local horsewoman Nancy Alberts bought his crooked-leg dam for $1, nurtured her, raced her and then bred her to local sire Ameri Valay.

John Ward Jr., who trained last year's Kentucky Derby winner Monarchos, skipped the Derby this year with Booklet. Now, he says, he has a fresh horse to take on those weary warriors who battled less than two weeks ago at Churchill Downs. "This is a very calculated move on our part," Ward says. "We laid out of the Derby purposefully to have a fresh horse for the Preakness. We felt of the three classics this was the one we had the best chance to win. "We look to be fresh and resilient. That means a lot in the Preakness.

Editor's note: Last year, Sun publisher Mike Waller, an avid racing fan, picked Charismatic to win the Preakness at the generous price of $18.80 for each $2 bet. Here's how he sizes up this year's race. Only if he falls coming out of the gate will Fusaichi Pegasus lose the 125th Preakness. So don't waste any money trying to beat him. He's the best 3-year-old since Seattle Slew. You'll only win small coins betting Fu-Peg to win, since his odds are likely to be about 3-5. Therefore, a better bet is picking the exacta (the first- and second-place horses in the exact order)

If a one-time claiming horse could win the Kentucky Derby, then why not the Preakness and -- for that matter -- the Triple Crown?Long-shot Derby champion Charismatic charged to the lead on the final turn and sprinted home with the second jewel of horse racing's Triple Crown yesterday in the 124th Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course.Police estimated the crowd at 100,311, the largest in history, with 65,000 packing the infield. It was a perfect afternoon for Baltimore's signature sporting event.

Although Lemon Drop Kid won't run in the Preakness, look for him in the Belmont.Trainer Scotty Schulhofer and Maryland owners Jinny Vance and Laddie Dance say they haven't lost confidence in the colt. They just want to preserve him for races later this season."It's a long year," Schulhofer said from his barn at Belmont Park. "And he's a young horse."A May 26 foal, Lemon Drop Kid had a rough trip in the Blue Grass Stakes, finishing fifth, and an even rougher trip in the Kentucky Derby, finishing ninth.

A Preakness without Bob Baffert?That seems almost unthinkable after Baffert trainees Silver Charm and Real Quiet captured the last two runnings of the Triple Crown's middle jewel. But it's a real possibility in the aftermath of the disappointing, 4-5-11 finishes of his three Kentucky Derby entries.General Challenge (11th) was shipped home to California. Excellent Meeting (fifth) will stay in Kentucky. Prime Timber is at Churchill Downs, but still on the fence. And the outstanding filly, Silverbulletday, will come here with a rider, but isn't certain to run.Baffert will wait until workouts Monday in Kentucky before deciding the agenda of Prime Timber, who raced wide with a host of others in the Derby before rallying for fourth money.