Preakness Stakes

The first two mares bred to GI Preakness Stakes winner Seize the Grey (Arrogate--Smart Shopping, by Smart Strike) have checked in foal, Gainesway announced Monday. Checked in foal to the new stallion are Above the Sun (Bernardini), who is owned by Three Times A Charm and is boarded at Collier Mathes's Chesapeake Farm, and stakes winner Queen of God (Paynter), who is owned and boarded at Todd and Angela Lewis's Westbrook Stables. In addition to the Preakness, Seize the Grey won the 2024 GI Pennsylvania Derby and GII Pat Day...

Just Steel (Justify), runner-up in last year's GI Arkansas Derby, continues to train towards his 4-year-old debut at Oaklawn Park, with the Mar. 29 GIII Oaklawn Mile his first major target of the season, according to trainer D. Wayne Lukas. Just Steel has been sidelined since suffering a condylar fracture during a fifth-place effort in the GI Preakness Stakes last May. "He's pretty versatile," Lukas said. "He could go long or short, so I've got some options. In a perfect world, if everything would fall into place, I'd like to...

The Maryland Racing Commission has approved a 2025 racing schedule that calls for Laurel and Pimlico to race just 120 days in 2025. The dates were approved at an Oct. 28 racing commission meeting. The story was first reported by the website the racingbiz.com. The number of racing dates has fluctuated in recent years, but the new schedule will mark a new era for Maryland racing. As recently as 2019 there were 174 racing dates. The dates will be divided between the state's two tracks with 114 dates at Laurel,...

Kenny McPeek announced Saturday that his superstar 3-year-old filly Thorpedo Anna (Fast Anna) will make her next start in the Aug. 24 GI DraftKings Travers S. McPeek had kept the decision to himself for a few days, but no one should have been surprised when he picked the Travers. That's McPeek's style, to be bold, to embrace a challenge to think outside of the box. There's no trainer like him. He has pulled this trick off before, winning 2020 GI Preakness S. with the filly Swiss Skydiver (Daredevil). "I just...

A total of 240 selected yearlings have been catalogued for the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale, with the 103rd edition of the boutique auction scheduled for Aug. 5 and 6 in Saratoga Springs, New York. Sessions will begin each evening at 6:30 p.m. in the Humphrey S. Finney Sales Pavilion. "Our consignors have supported Saratoga with an outstanding group of yearlings once again this year," said Fasig-Tipton President Boyd Browning. "The sire power on offer is strong and diverse, and the depth of pedigree as good as we have had in recent...

As witnessed at this year's GI Preakness S., partnerships and syndicates are reaching the winner's circle at the highest levels. MyRacehorse scored the victory with Seize the Grey (Arrogate) and over 2,500 people now can claim they were part of a Triple Crown victory. MyRacehorse may be getting all the press, but the reality of the situation is it only provides a small fraction of the horses needed to fill races at the racetracks in the United States. When you zoom out and look at all the managed partnerships and...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY-A steady rain Sunday morning wasn't going to put a damper on the mood at the barn of trainer Danny Gargan on the Saratoga backstretch. When you have the winner of the GI Belmont S. in one of your stalls, a lousy morning isn't going to feel so bad. And Dornoch (Good Magic), the upset winner of the Belmont, does indeed live in Gargan's barn. "My phone had 290 text messages on it," Gargan said, standing outside his office. "My phone hasn't stopped ringing. He came out of...

Jose Ortiz rode the 3,000th winner of his career when Save the Trees (Preservationist) captured the third race at Churchill Downs Sunday. The 30-year-old, who began his riding career in his native Puerto Rico, moved to the New York circuit in 2012 where he competing against his brother, fellow leading rider Irad Ortiz, Jr. Five years later, he earned the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Jockey. Ortiz won the 2022 GI Preakness S. aboard Early Voting (Gun Runner) and the 2017 GI Belmont S. aboard Tapwrit (Tapit). He has also ridden...

A filly by Twirling Candy (hip 509), a full-sister to GI Preakness S. winner Rombauer, equaled the fastest quarter-mile work of the week when covering the distance in :20 2/5 during the third session of the under-tack show for the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's June Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training Thursday in Central Florida. Consigned by Tom McCrocklin, who also consigns the Tiz the Law filly who set the :20 2/5 mark Wednesday, the bay was purchased by Mustang Farm for $140,000 at last year's Fasig-Tipton October sale. She RNA'd...

One thing Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas was not going to do was fret over the post position assigned to Seize the Grey (Arrogate) for Saturday's GI Belmont S. at Saratoga Race Course. Seize the Grey got the rail for the 1 1/4-mile Belmont. It's a post most dread, but Lukas, who has won 15 Triple Crown races--including four Belmonts--isn't going to lose any sleep over it. "You have no control over it," Lukas said, sitting a few feet away from Seize the Grey's stall at his barn...

The span between Memorial Day and the third leg of the Triple Crown is often a quiet one in the racing world. Not this year, though. Here's a shaking-out of a reporter's notebook from a week that generated some unexpected headlines. Louisiana's move to more lenient medication rules: TDN's survey of seven trainers--Steve Asmussen, Brad Cox, Michael Stidham, Tom Amoss, Al Stall, Dallas Stewart, Cherie DeVaux--spoke volumes about the announcement by the Louisiana Racing Commission that it would be implementing "emergency" standards that softened a number of drug-regulating standards as...

Just Steel (Justify), who sustained a condylar fracture of his right front fetlock during Saturday's GI Preakness S., has had successful surgery at the Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, according to a post from Light Up Racing on X yesterday. The surgery was performed by Dr. Larry Bramlage, who appeared in a video on the post. "We're here with Just Steel this morning; this is the morning after his surgery," said Bramlage, in the video shot Wednesday. "He's doing really well. He has a somewhat unusual fracture...