San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Rombauer romps to upset; Medina Spirit 3rd
BALTIMORE — Rombauer gave trainer Michael McCarthy his first Triple Crown victory by winning the 146th running of the Preakness as a 11-1 shot.
Rombauer came on strong down the stretch to overtake Bob Baffert’s front-running Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit on Saturday. Medina Spirit finished first at Churchill Downs two weeks ago but that result remains in limbo because the horse tested positive for a steroid after the race.
Midnight Bourbon came in second at Pimlico Race Course, 3½ lengths back, after going off with 3-1 odds. Medina Spirit ended up third after going off as the 2-1 favorite.
Rombauer covered the 1
course in an unofficial time of 1 minute, 53.62 seconds.
The bay colt had skipped the Kentucky Derby on May 1 and was McCarthy’s first Triple Crown entrant.
The win allowed McCarthy to get a Preakness win before his mentor, Madison High School graduate Todd Pletcher, a seventime Eclipse Award winner as trainer of the year.
Rombauer is owned by John and Diane Fradkin, a far cry from Medina Spirit’s Zedan Racing Stables and other horse racing conglomerates. He won for the third time in seven starts. McCarthy said this week Rombauer’s best weapon was between his ears and that his colt was training well. But few picked the long shot to win.
Baffert said Medina Spirit’s Kentucky Derby victory was “the result of the horse’s tremendous heart and nothing else” and he insists “there was never any attempt to game or cheat the system” — references to the horse’s postrace positive test for a steroid at Churchill
Downs.
Baffert had two horses entered but opted to stay away from Pimlico Race Course after the doping issue arose.
In a statement of more than 500 words emailed to reporters by his lawyer in the hours before the post time for the Preakness, Baffert said that “while this has been extremely hard and emotionally draining on me and my family, today is not about Bob Baffert.”
Assistant Jimmy Barnes was in Baltimore with Medina Spirit and Baffert’s other Preakness entrant, Concert Tour.
Baffert has said Medina Spirit was being treated for a skin condition with an antifungal ointment that included betamethasone, a corticosteroid that can be injected or applied topically and can help a horse’s joints.
“Our investigation is continuing and I don’t have definitive answers at this point,” Saturday’s statement said.
Hand sanitizer stations were available around Pimlico Race Course, which felt empty compared to the usual crowd for the race. Capacity was capped at 10,000, and track employees are walking around instructing fans to wear a mask.
Despite the Centers for Disease Control saying Thursday that fully vaccinated people could go without a mask and Maryland dropping its mask mandate, Pimlico and the city of Baltimore have kept it in place. Adherence to that protocol was spotty at best, but the old track that has been showing its age got a fresh coat of cleaning products.
“Everything’s clean,” said Andy Lamparter, who’s attended the race most years since 1975. “The bathrooms are cleaner than they’ve ever been.”