Derby champion Mage’s team leaning toward running him in the Preakness
With Mage in good health coming off his Kentucky Derby victory, his trainer and owners are leaning toward running him in the May 20 Preakness Stakes, but they will take a cautious approach in determining their next step.
Trainer Gustavo Delgado Sr. and co-owner Ramiro Restrepo, who teamed to buy the Derby champion for $290,000 at the Fasig-tipton auction in Timonium last May, said the Preakness is a strong consideration.
“If my guy is feeling the way he’s feeling, then on to
Baltimore and crab cakes we go,” Restrepo said, nodding toward Mage’s stall as he spoke with reporters at Churchill Downs Sunday morning.
“I know my dad. He doesn’t need much,” Delgado’s son and assistant trainer, Gustavo Jr., added. “If it’s up to what we see now, it’s high expectation that we’ll go to the Preakness.”
But Restrepo said Delgado never pushed Mage too hard in preparing him for the Derby trail — he and Justify are the only horses since 1882 to win the first jewel of the Triple Crown after not running as 2-yearolds — and will not change his approach now.
“Once you start forcing things against the path that it’s supposed to be on, that’s when things don’t go according to plan,” he said. “Obviously, whose dream isn’t to chase the Triple Crown, right? … You know that’s a dream in the background, but in the end, end, end, Mage has to want the Triple Crown. So if he comes out of the race as he appears to us here, then I know [Delgado] is going to want to go to the Preakness, and all the partners are going to want to go, too, but it’s never going to be at the expense of the horse.”
Trainers are increasingly reluctant to subject their horses to the two-week turnaround between the Derby and Preakness, a test of stamina they do not prepare for under any other circumstances. Last year, after Rich Strike won the Derby as an 80-1 underdog, trainer Eric Reed initially indicated he would make the trip to Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. Five days later, he changed his mind. Other Derby champions — Country House in 2019 and Grindstone in 1996 — had skipped the Preakness for medical reasons, but Rich Strike was the first since Spend a Buck in
1985 to eschew a Triple Crown chase in favor of alternative career plans.
The decision prompted calls for a renewed discussion of extending the Triple Crown calendar, which currently packs three races into five weeks. But those talks have gone nowhere.
Mage will likely return to the track at Churchill Downs for his first postderby exercise Tuesday. If all goes well and he does make the trip to Baltimore, he could face a field with several talented contenders he did not have to beat in Kentucky.
Trainer Todd Pletcher has not ruled out entering Forte, the Derby favorite until he was scratched Saturday morning because of a foot bruise. Mage finished second to Forte in the April 1 Florida Derby, so a rematch between the two would add zest to the second jewel of the Triple Crown.
Pletcher has never won the Preakness and generally prefers to point his best 3-year-olds to the Belmont Stakes, run at the trainer’s home base.
“If he runs in the Preakness, then he’d probably not run in the Belmont,” Pletcher said Sunday morning.
A more certain challenge for Mage could come from Chad Browntrained Blazing Sevens, the third-place finisher in the April 8 Blue Grass Stakes and fourth-place finisher in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Brown has mastered snatching Preakness wins with fresh horses (Early Voting last year and Cloud Computing in 2017) and will likely try to succeed with the same formula this time.
Trainer Brad Cox told reporters Sunday it was too early to say if thirdplace Derby finisher Angel of Empire (or any other three horses Cox saddled for Saturday’s race) would run in the Preakness. But Cox will make the trip.
“Right now, First
Mission is our Preakness horse,” he said, referring to the winner of the April 15 Lexington Stakes. “I don’t know if we’ll add any of these horses, but we’ll have to make a decision soon.”
Another Cox trainee, Instant Coffee, could also be in the mix. He finished sixth in the March 25 Louisiana Derby but was more impressive two months earlier in winning the Lecomte Stakes.
Larry Rivelli, the Chicago-based trainer of Derby runner-up Two Phil’s, said he had no immediate plans for his colt’s next start but has not ruled out the Preakness.
And fourth-place Derby finisher Disarm could join the field if two-time Preakness-winning trainer Steve Asmussen likes the way he recovers from Saturday’s race.
Tenth-place Derby finisher Confidence Game is also a possibility for the Preakness, said trainer Keith Desormeaux, who won the second jewel of the Triple Crown in 2016 with Exaggerator.
Trainer Bob Baffert, a seven-time Preakness winner, could be back at Pimlico with undefeated Arabian Knight and National Treasure, the fourth-place finisher in the April 8 Santa
Anita Derby. Baffert was suspended last spring for medication violations.
Other possibilities for the Preakness include
Red Route One, another Asmussen-trained horse who finished sixth in the April 1 Arkansas Derby; Il Miracolo, the sixth-place finisher in the Florida Derby; and Henry Q, the third-place finisher in the March 25 Sunland Park Derby and Californiabased Chase the Chaos.
For now, as the Preakness field takes shape, Delgado will cherish the victory he had fantasized about since he left a hugely successful career in his native Venezuela to chase glory on American tracks.
“This is something we wanted, we worked for this,” his son said. “My dad had accomplished pretty much everything in Venezuela. For him, at 60 years old, to start over again, pretty much at zero … and for me, it’s the best example. I’m very proud of him.”