‘War’ wins battle
Preakness delivers happy ending on odd day at Pimlico Upset in Preakness extends confounding Triple Crown season as War of Will prevails
For a few scary minutes, it looked like this star-crossed Preakness might end up the way the Triple Crown series began two weeks ago — bathed in controversy and concern for the future of the sport.
Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez was thrown off Bodexpress right at the start of the race and could have suffered serious injury. The horse then galloped riderless around the track like some ominous symbol of what might lie ahead for the Pimlico Race Course and Baltimore’s signature sporting event.
It already had been a strange and disturbing Preakness week, with the death of filly Congrats Gal at the end of Friday’s Miss Preakness Stakes and the chronic plumbing problems that marred the only weekend that matters at the facility.
The significance of the race already had been dramatically eroded by the strange end of the Kentucky Derby, when promising Triple Crown candidate Maximum Security crossed the finish line first only to be disqualified for impeding several horses as it headed for home.
So, there was Velazquez lying on the track as the 13 horses raced away, no doubt trying to figure out if he was still in one piece. He picked himself up and walked out of further danger, then reassured everyone after the race that he was fine.
Only then could anyone feel really good about the way War of Will shot down the rail, turning another questionable post position into the reason it had an almost perfect trip down the road to redemption.
Trainer Mark Casse said afterward that he didn’t consider it redemption at all, even though that would be an attractive angle considering his horse was also having a surprisingly good trip out of the No. 1 post in the Derby. That is, before he was knocked off stride by Maximum Security and fell back to finish seventh.
He called it relief, because War of Will could have been seriously injured on that sloppy track at Churchill Downs, but came out of the race healthy and ready to roll at Old Hilltop.
“Right after the Derby, I just felt — it’s hard to believe, but I felt joy and relief that he was OK,’’ Casse said, “and that we didn’t have the worst disaster in horse racing history.”
Casse had to wait to exhale again Saturday. He described Velazquez as “a dear friend of ours,” so he was worried this day might turn into a disaster that transcended the importance of his Preakness victory.
Velazquez refused medical attention, so the celebration could begin in earnest for War of Will and his connections, and Preakness week could end on high note after all that happened to cast an ugly cloud over it.
The announced attendance of 131,256 should remind everyone just how important the race is to the city of Baltimore and the record handle of $99,852,653 showed that the Derby controversy might have enhanced the event’s attractiveness — at least to the people that bet on the 14 races. So, all’s well that ends well, right?
Not exactly.
The hand-wringing over the future of Pimlico and the Preakness is not going to end because the race had a happy ending and the weekend was profitable. That’s pretty much what happens every year, so all the infrastructure problems that dogged this Preakness week will just be added to the running narrative that the racetrack is in such disrepair that it isn’t salvageable.
The fatalistic view in Baltimore that the beloved race will soon be moved to Laurel Park remains alive and well. The rhetoric about that might’ve been more muted the past few days, but nothing has changed.
The Stronach Group still seems intent on uprooting the Preakness, perhaps as soon as 2021, and the city has filed a lawsuit to prevent that from happening.
The disagreement has been festering for a long time, but no one can dispute that the track has become all but uninhabitable. The water main break Tuesday nearly crippled the facility and the lingering plumbing problems Friday and Saturday made restroom access problematic for many grandstand fans.
It’s a pretty sad day when the outhouses on the infield are the most dependable plumbing in the place, and many fans suspect the owners of the track aren’t all that unhappy about it.
The track needs to be completely rebuilt, dramatically renovated or sold for commercial or residential development. That much is clear.
The question is whether the stakeholders on either side of this issue ever get serious about finding a solution that might work for both The Stronach Group and the city.
Chances are, we’ll still be asking about it at this time next year.
peter.schmuck@baltsun.com twitter.com/SchmuckStop Read more from columnist Peter Schmuck on his blog, “The Schmuck Stops Here,” at baltimoresun.com/schmuckblog.
The thing that bothered Mark Casse was the not knowing.
What if Maximum Security had not swerved in front of Casse’s horse, War of Will, at the pivotal moment of the Kentucky Derby? Was a career-defining victory on the table?
Casse stewed on this point in the days after the race, as naysayers decried Maximum Security’s disqualification and said War of Will never had a chance. His mother even called him in tears to make sure he was OK.
Which made it all the sweeter for the 58-year-old trainer when he won the Preakness on Saturday with the very horse who’d been written off.
In another bizarre Triple Crown race unsettled by the trip of a riderless horse, Bodexpress, War of Will fulfilled his promise before a crowd of 131,256 at Pimlico Race Course.
“I just wanted a fair shot,” Casse said, reflecting on the events of two weeks earlier at the Derby. “That’s all I wanted.”
The 1¼-length victory was also the first in a Triple Crown race for both 24-year-old jockey Tyler Gaffalione and owner Gary Barber, a South African-born film producer who couldn’t be at the Preakness because he was attending the Cannes Film Festival in France.
Gaffalione said War of Will was unusually relaxed Saturday, following early leader Warrior’s Charge around the track until it was time to make his move along the inside rail. “The horse didn’t hesitate, and he finished the job,” the grinning rider said.
Gaffalione had also faced questions about the chaos at the Derby, with some even blaming him for causing Maximum Security to swerve. Those criticisms particularly irritated Casse.
“I said other words that I later regretted, because they put them in headlines,” he said. “But irritate is a nice word.”
As the 6-1 third choice at post time, War of Will paid $14.20 on a $2 bet to win, $7.40 on a $2 bet to place and $5.40 on a $2 bet to show. Runner-up Everfast paid $32 and $14.40, and third-place finisher Owendale paid $6.
The total betting handle of $99,852,653 was a Preakness record.
Alwaysmining finished a disappointing 11th in his quest to become the first Maryland-bred to win the Preakness since Deputed Testamony in 1983. “I thought he’d run better,” said jockey Daniel Centeno, who’d ridden Alwaysmining through a six-race win streak. “He had a good trip, and we tried to make a move around the turn, but he just stopped.”
Post-time favorite Improbable never made a move on the lead, finishing sixth and leaving trainer Bob Baffert tied with R. Wyndham Walden at a record seven Preakness wins.
The unprecedented Kentucky Derby finish set the stage for a strange run-up to the 144th Preakness. Maximum Security crossed the finish line first in Louisville, only to have his victory taken away by three Kentucky stewards who ruled he had swerved into the paths of other contenders — War of Will among them — as they turned for home. The disqualification left 65-1 long shot Country House as an unlikely and controversial Derby champion.
If Pimlico officials hoped for a Preakness rematch, that possibility quickly went out the window. Instead of making plans for the second leg of the Triple Crown, Maximum Security’s owner, Gary West, filed a lawsuit in hopes of overturning the Derby result. Then Country House’s trainer, Bill Mott, said his horse was sick and would not travel to Baltimore.
Mott’s decision left the Preakness field without the Derby winner for the first time since 1996 and just the fifth time in the past 60 years. Only four Derby horses made their way to Pimlico, led by fourth-place finisher Improbable. But the field ballooned to 13 as trainers saw an opportunity to snatch the $1.65 million race with fresh contenders.
The leading storylines often had little to do with the Preakness itself. The death of a filly named Congrats Gal on Friday’s Black-Eyed Susan undercard revived anxieties about horse safety that have traumatized the racing industry all year. Plumbing failures in the venerable Pimlico grandstand reminded patrons of the eternal debate over how long the track can last as a viable Preakness host.
And the race got off to a frightening start when Bodexpress bucked in the starting gate and dumped rider John Velazquez to the dirt. Velazquez was uninjured, but Bodexpress proceeded to run the race by himself, sometimes weaving too close to the pack for comfort.
He wasn’t corralled by outrider Kaymarie Kreidel until after the finish. “He was playing games,” she said. “I was unfortunately the one that ended the game for him.”
Gaffalione didn’t realize a horse was loose until he pulled up after the race. But Casse saw the mishap immediately and was relieved for Velazquez, a good friend. He was asked if he worries about what strange happening might interfere with the next chapter of this Triple Crown series, the June 8 Belmont Stakes.
“I think we’ve covered bizarre already,” he said.
Casse knew War of Will was an unusual horse from early on. Last year, when reporters or fans came to his barn in Toronto for a look at the outstanding filly, Wonder Gadot, he’d point to the 2-year-old colt and say, “Do you want to see a really, really good horse?” He took to calling War of Will by his initials, “WOW.”
The bay colt’s 2019 began in fine fashion with victories in two graded stakes at Fair Grounds Race Course in Louisiana. But War of Will’s path to the Triple Crown series strayed with a ninth-place finish in the Louisiana Derby and reports of minor physical problems. Then came the strange events in Louisville, where Gaffalione almost had to stop him to avoid colliding with Maximum Security.