BALTIMORE - He may walk a little slower and with use of a cane, but the 88-year-old trainer D. Wayne Lukas, with the help of a 25-year-old accomplice in the saddle, pulled off a $2 million heist Saturday evening at soggy Pimlico.
Lukas had jockey Jaime Torres put Seize the Grey on the lead soon after the start and the big gray colt and his young rider galloped along loose on the lead over a muddy sealed track for the entire race, winning the 149th Preakness by 2 1/4 lengths.
Mystik Dan, the Kentucky Derby winner, gave futile chase in the stretch under Brian Hernandez Jr., but had to settle for second, a head better than Catching Freedom.
It was six lengths back to Tuscan Gold in fourth. He was followed, in order, by Just Steel, Uncle Heavy, Imagination, and Mugatu. Muth, the morning-line favorite, was scratched on Wednesday when he developed a fever.
Just Steel, the other horse in the race trained by Lukas, was observed to be slightly off after the race. Diagnostics were performed according to Mike Rogers, acting president and general manager for 1/ST Racing. While the type and extent of the injury were not immediately available, 1/ST officials said the situation is not serious or life-threatening.
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It was the seventh Preakness victory for Lukas, which puts him one behind Bob Baffert, who won his record eighth last year with National Treasure.
Saturday, Baffert sent out Imagination, who figured to be on the lead. But a passive Frankie Dettori was content to let Torres and Seize the Grey have it. It may not have mattered for Imagination, who backed up to seventh.
But when Lukas saw Seize the Grey cruising on a two-length-plus lead after six furlongs in 1:11.35 he turned to his wife Laurie in the grandstand and said “watch out, we’re home free.”
They were.
Mystik Dan, who sat fourth along the inside early, tipped outside for the stretch drive. Though he lugged in a touch, he tried to run at Seize the Grey in the stretch, but couldn’t get there and was fortunate to hold second.
“When [Imagination] died off and we got outside of him, I’m like ‘okay, here we go,’ we’re just going to cruise to him and be able to run him down,” Hernandez said. “Lukas’ horse switched leads and sprinted on again. Our horse was running, we just couldn’t run him down today.”
A storyline coming out of the Derby was the relationship between Hernandez and Kenny McPeek, the trainer of Mystik Dan, and the loyalty between the two.
Lukas remained loyal to Torres, despite the native of Puerto Rico’s relative inexperience and the availability of some bigger name riders for the Preakness.
“Six agents, after he won the Pat Day Mile called and said you’re going to change riders for the big one, aren’t ya,”said Lukas. “I said ‘not a chance, he’s staying right there.’ ”
Torres, who was riding in his first Triple Crown race and for the first time at Pimlico, said his plan was to do whatever Imagination was going to do.
“I knew he was going to go to the lead, we looked at each other and he said ‘you go,’ ” Torres said. “I went, I took the lead, Seize the Grey is such an amazing horse, he just relaxed for me. When he felt the other horses coming close, he just looked at them. As I asked, I had a lot of horse.”
Seize the Grey,a son of the late Arrogate,covered the 1 3/16 miles in 1:56.82 and returned $21.80 to win; he was given a 100 Beyer Speed Figure. Seize the Grey is owned by MyRacehorse, a racing partnership that allows people to invest a small amount of money to own horses. There are 2,570 partners in Seize the Grey. A total of 5,000 shares were offered at $127 and sold.
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“Isn’t that something to make that many people happy?” Lukas said.
Lukas’s seventh Preakness victory came 44 years after his first, that one coming with Codex, who beat the filly Genuine Risk, who had won the Kentucky Derby two weeks earlier.
When Lukas came to the barn the next day, he said he had a bag of telegrams waiting for him, many full of hateful messages for the perception that Codex had mugged Genuine Risk turning for home.
Saturday, as he came down from the grandstand to the winner’s circle, Lukas said he was greeted by many of his rival trainers who congratulated him.
“One of the things that was very significant to me today - and maybe it’s because I’m getting a little bit older - but as I came out of the grandstand and out across the racetrack every one of the guys that were in that race stopped and hugged me and gave me a handshake,” Lukas said. “That meant more to me than any single thing.”
McPeek was among the first. He said he told Lukas “it’s now 15-3,” the amount of Triple Crown race victories Lukas has compared to McPeek’s.
“Wayne’s amazing, he stole it on the front,” McPeek said. “I love him actually, even when he beats me.”
Baffert said he didn’t really have a plan with Imagination, but he was not displeased with Dettori opting to sit off of Seize the Grey.
“We thought it was Wayne or us,” Baffert said. “Frankie probably thought he was in a good spot. At the end of the day, it was a great tactic. That’s the way Wayne and I have won these races, on the lead.”
Catching Freedom, who was running back two weeks after finishing fourth in the Kentucky Derby, raced in fifth position early and in the lane looked like he had a chance to at least get second.
“I thought I was going to run second and the last sixteenth of a mile he had heavy legs,” Prat said.
The first three finishers were all running back in two weeks, Seize the Grey out of the Pat Day Mile and Mystik Dan and Catching Freedom, who were two of the three Preakness horses who ran in the Kentucky Derby.
Tuscan Gold, who hadn’t run since finishing third in the Louisiana Derby on March 23, finished fourth, beaten 8 1/4 lengths.
“Hated the track,” trainer Chad Brown said. “For my horse, it was an excuse. That’s horse racing. I’m happy we at least tried. Looking forward to getting him on a dry track to see what he can do. I think this horse has a lot of potential.”
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Brown didn’t rule out running Tuscan Gold in the Belmont Stakes, which this year will be run at 1 1/4 miles at Saratoga on June 8.
Given the outcomes of Saturday, Brown will likely have the favorite for the Belmont in Kentucky Derby runner-up Sierra Leone. Lukas was non-committal about whether he would run Seize the Grey back in the Belmont.
Beware though if he does. He’s stolen that race a few times as well.
- additional reporting by Nicole Russo
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