Early Voting able to outpace Epicenter
They pulled it off again. Five years after trainer Chad Brown and owner Seth Klarman took the 2017 Preakness with Cloud Computing, a horse that would never win another race, they targeted the 2022 edition with another fresh but lightly tested contender, Early Voting.
Their horse earned enough qualifying points to run in the Kentucky Derby, but they skipped it, figuring he’d have a better chance in Baltimore against a smaller, more fatigued field. They calculated correctly as Early Voting swept to victory in the 147th Preakness, his fourth career race.
“It’s beautiful when a plan comes together,” Brown said afterward.
The win was a cherished 65th birthday present for Klarman, who grew up three blocks from Pimlico Race Course before he went on to his lucrative career as a Boston-based hedge fund manager. It was the second Triple Crown victory for Brown, a four-time Eclipse Award winner as the nation’s top trainer.
“Cloud Computing was a once in a lifetime,” Klarman said. “And now I have it twice in a lifetime, which is really hard to believe it could happen.”
The bookish, mediashy owner and the prolific trainer have become close as they’ve built a mutually beneficial partnership, and the Preakness has turned out to be their brightest stage.
“I just want to say how happy I am to deliver a classic victory to one of my best friends, Seth Klarman, on his birthday today,” Brown said. “It’s really memorable for me.”
Early Voting was known as a front-runner coming into the race, and he ran out of steam late in the April 9 Wood Memorial, where Mo Donegal passed him. But jockey Jose Ortiz coaxed him to sit behind early leader Armagnac in the Preakness, and his patience paid off. He passed Armagnac at the top of the stretch, with plenty of fuel still in his tank. Epicenter, the 6-5 favorite, tried to move up along the rail to catch Early Voting, but Ortiz closed off his path and held on to win by 1 ¼ lengths.
“Whoever was coming had to come around me,” Ortiz said.
Brown was not surprised to see Early Voting hold off the more experienced and lauded Epicenter. “I said the other day to somebody, he is like a bar fighter,” he said. “He has a good mind on him, but he is going to step into you if you get in his face, this horse.”
Ortiz, a first-time Preakness winner, broke down in his postrace interview, thanking Brown and Klarman for supporting his career and praising their wisdom in looking past the Derby. He felt Early Voting, whom he’s ridden in each of his four career starts, was “not seasoned enough” for the 20-horse field at Churchill Downs.
“It’s very hard to get an owner to pass on the Derby,” Ortiz said. “They made the right choice for the horse.”
Klarman said Early Voting likely would not have reacted well to the torrid early pace in the Derby. “We thought he needed a little more seasoning,” he said. “We thought the extra rest would help him.”