Preakness | Horse Racing Free Tips

$100,000 Trainer Bonus Returns For Pimlico’s Preakness Weekend

For the fourth consecutive year, the Maryland Jockey Club is offering the $100,000 Sentient Jet Trainer Bonus to horsemen that accumulate the most points during stakes races over Preakness weekend, Oct. 1-3 at Pimlico Race Course.

Led by the 145th running of the Preakness Stakes (G1), presented this year as the final jewel in a refashioned Triple Crown and a “Win and You”re In” qualifier for the Nov. 7 Breeders' Cup Classic (G1), a total of 15 Thoroughbred stakes, nine graded, worth $3.35 million will be contested over three days.

Trainers who run a minimum of five horses in the 15 stakes races during Preakness weekend will be eligible for bonus money, with $50,000 going to the trainer with the most points, $25,000 for second, $12,000 for third, $7,000 for fourth, $4,000 for fifth and $2,000 for sixth.

Points are accumulated for finishing first (10 points), second (seven), third (five) and fourth (three) and by having a starter (one) in each of Pimlico's Thoroughbred stakes.

Preakness weekend stakes action begins Thursday, Oct. 1 with the $200,000 Chick Lang (G3), $100,000 Jim McKay Turf Sprint and $100,000 The Very One. The historic $250,000 Pimlico Special (G3) highlights a Friday, Oct. 2 card that also serves as Claiming Crown Preview Day.

Joining the $1 million Preakness this year is the 96th running of the $250,000 Black-Eyed Susan for 3-year-old fillies. They are supported by the $250,000 Dinner Party (G2), $200,000 Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash (G3), $150,000 Miss Preakness (G3), $150,000 Gallorette (G3), $150,000 Laurel Futurity, $150,000 Selima, $100,000 Skipat, $100,000 James W. Murphy, $100,000 Hilltop and $100,000 The Very One.

Nominations for all 15 Thoroughbred stakes close Thursday, Sept. 17.

Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen captured the $50,000 prize in both 2017 and 2018 but finished second to Brad Cox in 2019. Cox led the way with 36 points last year, three more than Asmussen, including running third and fourth, respectively, with Owendale and Warrior's Charge in the Preakness, Cox's Triple Crown race debut.

Cox won the Miss Preakness with eventual champion Covfefe in track-record time of 1:07.70 for six furlongs and the Allaire duPont Distaff (G3) with Mylady Curlin, and was second with Ulele in the Black-Eyed Susan. Asmussen picked up wins in the Pimlico Special with Tenfold and Maryland Sprint (G3) with New York Central, and was fifth in the Preakness with Laughing Fox.

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Mr. Big News ‘Definitely’ Aiming For Preakness; Pegasus Winner Pneumatic Training Forwardly At Saratoga

Trainer Bret Calhoun termed Allied Racing's Kentucky Derby third-place finisher Mr. Big News “probable” for the Preakness Stakes but that a final decision likely will be made after the colt works later this week.

“Right now he came out of the Derby well; we're definitely pointing that direction,” Calhoun said at Churchill.

Mr. Big News rallied from 10th to finish third in the Kentucky Derby, 3 1/4 total lengths behind victorious Authentic and two lengths behind heavy favorite Tiz the Law. The Giant's Causeway colt earned a free spot in the Preakness Stakes by virtue of winning Oaklawn Park's $200,000 Oaklawn Stakes at 46-1 odds, almost identical to his Derby odds. In between those races, Mr. Big News was sixth in Keeneland's Grade 2 Toyota Blue Grass Stakes won by Preakness candidate Art Collector.

Calhoun said the Preakness decision will be almost solely made on “just how he's doing,” not on the other horses showing up.

“I want him to be coming into the Derby just like he came into the Derby,” he said. “If he's going that good, we'll run. Who else is running really doesn't have a big bearing. We're getting to the end of the 3-year-old races, so my options are either run him there, go to the turf or back off. I really don't want to run him against older horses at this point in time. So if he's doing really, really well, like he was coming into the Derby, we'll definitely run in the Preakness.”

Of the Derby, Calhoun said, “At the three-eighths pole I got pretty excited. I thought he might win the whole thing. I knew they were going pretty fast in front him, and I thought they might back up to him. He was moving pretty good to them. But the 1-2 finishers are very, very good horses and when they straightened up, they went on and we didn't close the gap very much from there.”

Two years after they finished a very close third in the Preakness with Tenfold, owner Ron Winchell and trainer Steve Asmussen will be back in the 1 3/16-mile classic with Pneumatic. Tenfold closed out of a fog that obscured the view of much of the 2018 Preakness, coming up three-quarters of a length shy of Kentucky Derby winner Justify, who went on to take the Belmont Stakes and the Triple Crown.

Pneumatic worked five-eighths of a mile Sunday over Saratoga's Oklahoma training track in 1:01 2/5. The Uncle Mo colt will remain there with assistant trainer Scott Blasi until shipping to Pimlico.

“He's training really well,” Asmussen said. “Obviously we were encouraged with his Pegasus. We thought it was his strongest race to date. It appears the Derby participants have come out in good order, and the Preakness ought to be a great race.”

Pneumatic won his first two starts at Oaklawn Park, then was third in Churchill Downs' Matt Winn Stakes (G2) won by the highly regarded Maxfield. After a fourth in the revamped Belmont Stakes, eight weeks later he captured Monmouth Park's Aug. 15 Pegasus. Now he'll have seven weeks before the Preakness.

“We made a conscious decision, because of how well he ran in the Pegasus from the timing after the Belmont to the Pegasus, to try to follow a similar plan that he responded to,” Asmussen said, “(having) nothing but respect for how good of a race it's going to be.”

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Art Collector’s Foot Healing Well, Drury Says ‘All Systems Go’ For Preakness Stakes

Bruce Lunsford's Art Collector remains on track for the Oct. 3 Preakness Stakes (G1) after missing the Kentucky Derby (G1) with a minor foot issue.

Art Collector worked a half-mile in 48.10 seconds on Saturday at trainer Tommy Drury's Skylight Training Center base under jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. Drury said the son of 2006 Preakness winner Bernardini likely will ship into Churchill Downs within the next few days and work over that track this weekend.

“He seems good,” Drury said. “He breezed over the weekend, just kind of a maintenance half-mile. Brian felt he was as good as he's ever been. As long as everything is going right, we're going to shoot for Baltimore. But as always, we're going to let him take us along. We're going to get him settled in here (Churchill Downs) and make sure everything is OK, and at some point over the weekend I'd guess he'll go five-eighths. I'd say if everything goes well there, we're on target for the Preakness.”

Art Collector, who would have been the co-second choice behind Tiz the Law, was not entered in the Kentucky Derby after nicking a piece of flesh off his left front heel in training.

“He just grabbed the back of his quarter,” Drury said. “The thing was sensitive and sore to the touch. There was a little flap there that needed to be trimmed away. We knew when we trimmed it away, it was going to be even more sensitive, and the right thing to do was sit that one out and put it behind us.”

Drury said Art Collector missed three days of training.

“We were able to get him right back to the track,” he said. “I jogged him the first day and he was back to galloping. It wasn't that he had some major issue, it was just bad timing. There wasn't much we could do for it Derby Week with the medication rules. To run, it would have just been for ego. If you don't win the Kentucky Derby, then it doesn't matter. Nobody wants to talk to the guy who finishes fifth.

“At least for me, I don't want to just lead one over there just to be leading them over there. I want to take my best shot. Had he been a $10,000 claimer could we have patched him up? Sure we could have. But is that the right thing to do for the horse? Absolutely not. Now we're going to go into the Preakness and we're going to take our best shot. I'm not thinking about a race. I'm thinking about a career. Bruce has already said he's more than willing to run this horse next year. So why would we do something stupid at this stage of the game?”

The lifelong Louisvillian might have missed out on what would have been his first Kentucky Derby starter, but he said trainers make such decisions all the time outside the spotlight.

“Have I thought, 'What if?' Sure I have,” Drury said. “That being said, I slept better that night than I did the entire two weeks leading up to the race. I was very comfortable with the decision I made, and I'm very comfortable where the horse is. We want him to be good for the long haul and not just one race.”

Now the trainer is looking forward to his possible Triple Crown debut in the Preakness.

“The timing of it is good,” he said. “The thing I like is that he doesn't have to take his racetrack with him. I would expect him to do that in Baltimore as well. I'm just looking forward to giving him the opportunity to run against those horses. He may or may not have run well in the Derby had he been there. We're certainly not going to take anything away from the winner. He ran a huge race. But we're looking forward for our opportunity to go after him.”

Drury said he's really glad now that Art Collector ran back in the Aug. 9 Ellis Park Derby at 1 1/8 miles instead of training up to the Derby off of the July 8 Blue Grass.

“Absolutely,” he said. “This didn't really interfere with our schedule a whole lot. We missed a couple of days and we were right back at the track. He's been training very forwardly. He worked good Saturday, so it seems like at this point, it's all systems go.”

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Monday Morning Qb ‘Raring To Go,’ Could Target Preakness Stakes

Cash is King and LC Racing's stakes-winning 3-year-old Monday Morning Qb, a game second behind undefeated Happy Saver in the Federico Tesio Sept. 7 at Laurel Park off a seven-month layoff, is under consideration for the 145th Preakness Stakes (G1) Oct. 3 at Pimlico Race Course.

The 1 3/16-mile Preakness, run this year as the final jewel in a refashioned Triple Crown while serving as a “Win and You're In” qualifier for the Breeders' Cup Classic (G1), anchors a weekend of 16 stakes, nine graded, worth $3.35 million in purses Oct. 1-3.

Monday Morning Qb earned his lone stakes victory last December in the seven-furlong Heft at Laurel Park and was briefly on the Triple Crown trail, finishing fourth in the 1 1/8-mile Withers (G3) Feb. 1 at Aqueduct. The sizeable Maryland-bred son of Imagining was given time after that race to mature and develop, returning to trainer Robert E. 'Butch' Reid Jr. last month.

He was entered but unable to draw into the field for a one-mile turf allowance Aug. 28 at Laurel and wound up launching his comeback in the 1 1/8-mile Tesio, the traditional local prep for the Preakness. He set solid fractions of 24.76 seconds, 48.82 and 1:13.13 before being overtaken at the head of the stretch by Happy Saver but battled on despite failing to switch leads, finishing 1 ½ lengths behind the winner but nine lengths clear of Big City Bob in third.

“He ran very well considering the layoff. To come back going a mile and an eighth was not an easy task, so we were very pleased with his effort,” Reid said. “He came out of it well. He's been back to the track and he looks happy and raring to go. He was definitely tired afterwards but after a couple days he bounced right back. We're real happy with him.

“I think if he switched leads, I'm not saying we would have beat that horse but he'd have been a lot closer I believe,” he added. “He's got a little bit of a concentration problem that we have to work on to get him to switch leads turning for home. He's kind of always had that habit. It's unfortunate because he does it perfectly in the morning.”

The Tesio was Monday Morning Qb's second straight race at two turns. His sire was a multiple graded-stakes winner going long on the grass including the 2014 Man o' War (G1) for Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey, and earned nearly $1.2 million in purses.

“We felt all along he'd get two turns,” Reid said. “We really think he's going to route on turf is what he's going to end up being. We'll think about getting him on the turf. I would like to try that before the end of the year, for sure.”

To that end, Reid said the connections are also considering the $100,000 James W. Murphy on the Preakness undercard. The Murphy, also for 3-year-olds, is contested at a mile on the grass.

“We're looking at both races. We still haven't ruled out the Preakness, to be honest with you,” Reid said. “The Murphy for straight 3-year-olds going a mile on the turf [is interesting]. We'll definitely make him eligible for both of those races and pick our best spot from there.”

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