THE MUSIC STOPS AT PIMLICO SATURDAY
At Preakness, they’re playing ‘musical chairs’ with jockeys
The jockey shuffle heading into the Preakness has a “musical chairs” feel to it.
Of the 13 jockeys in Saturday’s race, nine who rode in the Kentucky Derby are aboard a different horse in the Preakness. Most notably, Hall of Famer Mike Smith is now riding favored Improbable with familiar trainer Bob Baffert, bumping Irad Ortiz to Bourbon War.
“It seems to be a little bit more than maybe most of the time, but this isn’t uncommon,” Smith said. “Especially during this Triple Crown stuff, there’s a lot of musical chairs. A lot of people picked up horses at the last minute and won the Derby, won the Preakness and won the Belmont, for that matter.”
An unusual chain of events has contributed to all the movement this year.
The top four horses that crossed the finish line in Kentucky won’t run in the Preakness. Improbable is the morning line favorite partially because he has finished first or second in five of six races, the lone exception when he came
in fifth at the Derby and was bumped up to fourth after Maximum Security was disqualified.
Smith chose to ride Omaha Beach in the Derby, but after the race favorite was scratched, Baffert opted to stick with Ortiz. That didn’t work well for anyone — Improbable never really got a sniff of the lead under Ortiz and Smith finished 10th with Cutting Humor.
The team of Baffert and Smith produced a Triple Crown last year with Justify and four years ago with American Pharoah, and now trainer and jockey are together again trying to recreate the magic.
“It’s nothing against Irad. He rode him great in the Derby,” said Elliot Walden, co-owner of Improbable. “It came down to a simple thing: Bob Baffert’s had good luck with Mike Smith. Bob’s kind of a karma guy.”
That’s only one of many switches for this race. Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez replaces Chris Landeros aboard Bodexpress; Joel Rosario goes from Game Winner to Everfast; Jon Court from Long Range Toddy to Market King and Jose Ortiz from Tacitus to Anothertwistafate.
Also, Ricardo Santana moves from Plus Que Parfait to Laughing Fox, and Javier Castellano from Vekoma to Warrior’s Charge, which caused Florent Geroux to get in the saddle aboard Owendale.
Smith has been through similar situations before, and would love to pull off another win on Saturday.