SURPRISE WINNER
Horse gets first win on dirt with victory in the second leg of Crown
Rombauer, with jockey Flavien Prat aboard, surges past Medina Spirit to win the 146th running of the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course on Saturday in Baltimore, MD.
On a sunny, peaceful morning last week outside the
Stakes Barn at Pimlico Race Course, trainer Mike Mccarthy told one writer what he thought might happen in Saturday’s 146th running of the $1 million Preakness Stakes.
“I am extremely confident the horse will handle the 1 3⁄16 miles,” Mccarthy said of the Preakness distance. “He might be a little pace-dependent, but he should get a pace to run at. I’m confident.”
Early Saturday evening as the sun started to dip after a spectacular Mid-atlantic day,
Mccarthy proved to be clairvoyant. Or maybe he had taken a ride into the future in the
Hot Tub Time Machine.
What Mccarthy thought would happen, happened and he woke up Sunday morning with a Triple Crown race win on his resume.
His horse, a sturdy sort named Rombauer, pulled off an upset win in the second leg of the Triple Crown. He and jockey Flavien Prat rallied down the Pimlico stretch and won the Preakness by a comfortable 3 1⁄2 lengths in front of a capped crowd — because of the coronavirus pandemic — of 10,000.
Rombauer, a bay son of Twirling Candy who is owned by Californians John and Diane Fradkin, was the first horse Mccarthy ever entered in a
Triple Crown race.
“Just really surreal, all of it,” Mccarthy, 50, said. “When he hit the front, I don’t think I said a word. I certainly didn’t root, at least I don’t think I did. Just kind of watched the horse in a rhythm, him and Flavien.”
Rombauer’s victory put an end to the Triple Crown hopes of Medina Spirit. That horse, trained by Hall of Famer Bob Baffert, could only manage third.
Baffert has been embroiled in controversy for the past week after it was learned that Medina Spirit failed a post-derby drug test that could result in him being disqualified from his win in the Run for the Roses on May 1 at Churchill Downs.
After Rombauer rumbled home in the Preakness, certainly some of the attention was deflected away from Baffert — who was not here — and Medina Spirit.
“Stunned, not totally surprised, I guess,” Mccarthy said. “I don’t know if that makes any sense. The horse has been touting himself here all week.”
Mccarthy is a former assistant to Todd Pletcher, who will be inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame in August.
He worked for Pletcher for eight years before going out on his own in 2014.
His biggest career win was the $9 million Pegasus World Cup in 2019 with City of Light, who also won the 2018 Breeders’ Cup Dirt mile.
Pletcher, who saddled Unbridled Honor to a sixth-place finish in the Preakness, was one of the first to congratulate his former employee, giving him a big bear hug on the track.
“I’m very, very happy for him,” Pletcher said. “He deserved it. I was rooting for him if we couldn’t do it.”
Medina Spirit and jockey John Velazquez seized the lead from the start but had to work for it as he was shadowed by Midnight Bourbon and jockey Irad Ortiz Jr.
“I knew he was going to get pressed and I was hoping he wasn’t going to overdo it, but he did,” Velazquez said. “He didn’t stop. He just got beat. He kept running.”
The early fractions were 23.77 seconds for the first quarter-mile and 46.93 for the half. Medina Spirit came under pressure on the far turn and was passed by Midnight Bourbon in mid-stretch. It looked like he might go on and win at odds of 3-1.
It was not to be because Rombauer was rumbling.
“If they were going to beat me, somebody was really gonna have to come running,” Ortiz said. “And that was Flavien, flying on the outside. My horse ran great, he just got beat.”
“He was really on his toes,” Prat said of his horse.
Rombauer last ran in the Blue Grass at Keeneland in Lexington and finished third. This was his first win on dirt; he broke his maiden on the grass and also won the El Camino Real Derby on a synthetic surface at Golden Gate in California.
Mccarthy had wanted to run the horse in the Kentucky Derby but was overruled by John Fradkin.
The final time was 1:53.62 over a fast track. Rombauer paid $25.60, $10 and $5.20. The biggest disappointment in the race had to be from the other Baffert runner, Concert Tour, who was never a factor and finished ninth in the 10horse field.