Won The Preakness

The entrance of Coronado's Quest into the Preakness meant the exit of Victory Gallop, second in the Kentucky Derby.Elliott Walden, trainer of Victory Gallop, said yesterday that his colt will wait for the Belmont Stakes."

If the Triple Crown series is any omen, this could be a good year for Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton.Arkansas is now 2-for-2 for in the Triple Crown races.Lil E. Tee, owned by W. Cal Partee of Magnolia, Ark., won the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago and Pine Bluff, owned by John Ed Anthony of Hot Springs, Ark., won the Preakness yesterday.Anthony said he knows Clinton, who seems headed for the Democratic presidential nomination, "very well," but declined to comment when he was asked if he's a Clinton supporter.

Nick Zito had experienced every stroke of bad luck that can beset a horse in a race - stumbles, poor positioning, traffic problems, bumps, inclement weather. Until the Kentucky Derby. That's when The Cliff's Edge, the Derby's morning-line favorite, lost his front shoes and came home fifth after running next-to-last in the 18-horse field early in the race. "I've never had that happen," Zito said of the shoe incident after his two Preakness horses, The Cliff's Edge and Sir Shackleton, galloped over the Pimlico track yesterday morning.

Besides the horses themselves, few things change at Pimlico from each third Saturday in May to the next, and that sense of tradition is precisely what ABC intends to present in bulk for the ++ 120th running of the Preakness tomorrow (4:30 p.m., Channel 2).From the opening montage -- a look back at the history of the race, backed by a stirring musical score -- to the telecast's second opening sequence, airing just before the 5:31 p.m. post time, featuring the weather vanes that carry the colors of Preakness winners, ABC's telecast will be awash in the traditions that naturally flow from the racetrack.

Trainer D. Wayne Lukas is exuding confidence, but not to the extent that he's willing to guarantee a victory by Corporate Report in Saturday's 116th Preakness at Pimlico Race Course.WBAL radio's Chick Lang said yesterday that Lukas had given him a Joe Namath-like assurance, but Lukas said that wasn't true."He might have interpreted it that way," said Lukas, smiling, "but when did the truth ever enter a good story?"Lukas, a 55-year-old former high school basketball coach, is well on his way to becoming the leading money-winning trainer in North America for the ninth straight year.

What's the Preakness Stakes without Nick Zito?The New York-based trainer announced yesterday that he will have a runner in the race for the fifth consecutive year.Zito is skipping the Preakness with Suave Prospect, who was 11th in the Kentucky Derby, but is entering Star Standard, a speedy son of 1988 Preakness winner Risen Star.Zito said he decided to go in the Preakness after Star Standard, winner of the Lexington Stakes at Keeneland in his last start, worked five furlongs in 59 1/5 seconds over the weekend at Belmont Park.

In a pleasant departure from a year ago, the Preakness has an actual, detectable pulse this year.The stakes barn at Pimlico isn't a still-life painting, as it was a year ago during much of the week leading up to the Saturday race.Yesterday, the Kentucky Derby winner, Silver Charm, worked out in the morning, and two other Preakness horses arrived in the afternoon, raising to six the number of Preakness horses on the grounds.That's a lot livelier than a year ago, when the only Preakness horse hanging around the barn for most of the week was poor Louis Quatorze, a colt who ran 16th in the Kentucky Derby.

Prairie Bayou escaped a near brush with disaster yesterday and won the first Preakness Stakes in modern times in which a horse suffered a fatal injury.The death of Union City, who had to be humanely destroyed after fracturing sesamoid bones in his right front ankle, shrouded the achievement of Loblolly Stable, which seems jinxed in the Kentucky Derby, but won the Preakness for the second time in two years. The race also marked the defeat of Kentucky Derby winner Sea Hero, who finished fifth and squelched any chance of a 1993 Triple Crown winner.

The horses were coming off the trucks near the Pimlico stakes barn yesterday morning, and Robert and Beverly Lewis were lined up among a crowd waiting to see their horse, Charismatic, the Kentucky Derby winner.A beautiful chestnut was led by, and Robert Lewis leaned forward, looking at him."Is that Charismatic?" he was asked.Silence. And then, "I don't know. I don't think he's big enough."The Lewises do have 90 racehorses spread around the country, and until his surprising Derby victory two weeks go, Charismatic wasn't one they necessarily would recognize.

From Virginia Kelley to Jack Kent Cooke, Lenny Hale to John "Pappy" Poole, a lot of new names popped onto the Maryland racing scene in 1993.The president's mother made not one, but two trips to Laurel Race Course, when she visited her son at the White House during his first year in office.Cooke shocked a lot of people when, all of a sudden, Joe De Francis became his new best friend and he announced plans to build a $160 million stadium for his Washington Redskins football team on track property.