HORSE RACING

Preakness field expected to be Derby light

Jennie Rees
USA TODAY Sports

BALTIMORE – If the Kentucky Derby is the hardest race in the world to say no to, the surprise of the Preakness Stakes is that more owners and trainers didn't say yes.

Led by victorious California Chrome, only three of the 19 Derby starters are in the 10-horse field expected to be entered today for Saturday's 139th Preakness. The others are Derby seventh Ride On Curlin and 11th-place General a Rod, both trained and owned by Louisvillians.

Only two other times in the past 34 years have as few as three Derby horses been wheeled back two weeks later into the Triple Crown's middle leg at Pimlico. That was 2006 and 2008, when unbeatens Barbaro and Big Brown came in off impressive Derby victories and seemed to tower over the competition.

Other than the two-week spacing between the 1¼-mile Derby and 13/16-mile Preakness, owner Jack Wolf doesn't understand it.

Wolf, whose Starlight Racing partnership bought the Mike Maker-trained General a Rod with Skychai Racing five days before the Derby, says to call the Preakness a consolation prize is unfair to a fabulous race.

He has such a good time at Pimlico that Wolf on Tuesday was strongly considering changing his plane ticket from Friday in order to attend tonight's Wednesday evening's Preakness draw — held in a party setting — and Thursday's traditional Alibi Breakfast.

"They really make the owner feel very welcome and important," Wolf said. "I get Preakness fever whether we have a horse in it or not."

Pimlico long has enjoyed the reputation as the best in treating the owners, trainers and barn help among the Triple Crown tracks. Preakness swag is prevalent. The track provides and pays for the horses' feed, hay and bedding of choice, along with carrots. Not only are courtesy cars provided, they come with off-duty police and firefighters as the Preakness participants' personal drivers.

"You heard it all going in," Billy Gowan, Ride On Curlin's trainer, said after being in town less than 24 hours. "But it's as good or better than what you've heard."

One factor in the lack of Derby horses here could be that trainer Todd Pletcher can account for three, four or five Derby horses and last ran in the Preakness in 2011. He prefers waiting five weeks for the Belmont Stakes, the 1½-mile Triple Crown finale he won last year with Palace Malice.

None of Pletcher's four Derby starters this year are in the Preakness, including third-place Danza.

"People want to wait four, five, six weeks before they run their horse back," Gowan said. "My philosophy is if the horse is showing you all the (right) signs, I say run 'em. You only get this chance one time. My horse is doing great. I don't see any reason to sit in the barn."

History shows that the Preakness winner overwhelmingly comes out of the Derby.

Eight times since 1997, that's been the Derby winner. But going back 30 years, a Derby loser has won the Preakness 17 times. And of those, 11 did not finish in the top three at Churchill Downs, including Oxbow last year.

Bob Baffert has trained five Preakness winners, all of whom ran in the Derby. But his lone shot this year is Bayern, who was first in the Derby Trial but disqualified to second and didn't run in the Kentucky Derby a week later.

Baffert says the grind of just getting to the Derby takes a toll on the horse and the Derby itself takes a toll on the owners' wallets. But he says California Chrome also has discouraged competition here.

"If he had won by a nose or a neck and been struggling at the end, it's a different story," Baffert said. "The way he did it, he was the best horse.

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"People with the better horses think, 'Let's wait for the Belmont,' and most of those guys are stabled in New York anyway. They can give their horse a breather and figure, 'I can't come back and beat him in the second leg, with his speed, at the shorter distance. Let's go home and wait on him.' "

Maker, however, started thinking about the Preakness three days after the Derby.

"He didn't show any signs of stress. He had a high energy level," he said of General a Rod, the Fountain of Youth runner-up and Florida Derby third-place finisher. "We took him back to the track a day earlier (than normal) because he was so sharp. If we wait for the Belmont, looks like it might be coming up a lot tougher than the Preakness."

General a Rod had always been up close to the lead, but wound up near the back of the pack and in traffic much of the way. He finished 8½ lengths behind California Chrome. Outside the Derby winner, Maker thinks General a Rod is as good as any of the others.

"It's just kind of a throw-out race," he said. "I've always had confidence in this horse. Obviously California Chrome has proven he's the goods, so I have a lot of catching up to do."

The Derby might be the only race where you talk about finishing seventh as a big effort. That's where Ride On Curlin, who broke from post 18, was after being last and almost 20 lengths behind the surprisingly slow pace, finally getting free of traffic in midstretch to make a run.

Was it worth the $50,000 in entry fees to run in the Derby?

"Well, mathematically no," said Dan Dougherty, Ride On Curlin's owner. "But to say your horse is in the Derby, you can't replace that. Hopefully he'll make it up here."

Contact Jennie Rees at (502) 582-4042. Follow her on Twitter @CJ_Jennie, Facebook.com/CJJennie and courier-journal.com/racingblog.