Southland Flavor for Preakness

BALTIMORE —  The venue may be Pimlico, but the saddling area will look more like Hollywood Park or Santa Anita today when the Preakness Stakes is run for the 116th time.

This is the Palm Tree Preakness. The middle race in the Triple Crown series has been won by California-connected horses in four of the last six years--Tank’s Prospect, Snow Chief, Alysheba and Sunday Silence--and numerically, at least, that trend might be expected to continue today. There are eight horses entered, and only two--Strike The Gold, the Kentucky Derby winner, and Hansel, the Derby favorite who ran 10th--are runners without West Coast ties.

The West Coast contingent is led by Best Pal, the California-bred who is trying to become the first gelding to win the Preakness since Holiday in 1914.

“We’re looking forward to the rematch with Strike The Gold,” said Ian Jory, who trains Best Pal, the Kentucky Derby runner-up.

Jory, however, knows that there is more to this Preakness than a Derby rehash, starting with Olympio, the Arkansas Derby winner.

Best Pal once beat Olympio easily, but that was in December’s Hollywood Futurity. Since then, Best Pal has been winless while finishing close in three stakes against the best of opponents. Olympio has won three out of four, one a sprint victory over Dinard, the Santa Anita Derby winner who was taken out of the Kentucky Derby because of a knee injury.

“There are two ways of looking at the race,” Jory said of the Derby. “Strike The Gold was so far out in the middle of the track that I don’t think my horse saw him when he made his winning move. I think that if he saw him, we might have been closer. My horse passed Mane Minister and might have thought the race was over. With Strike The Gold out of sight, I think Best Pal’s momentum slowed after that.”

The flip side to Jory’s analysis is that Best Pal was fortunate to get clear along the rail. Chris McCarron, riding the tiring Sea Cadet, hit his colt with the whip from the left side and he came off the rail, allowing Best Pal the room to run through.

“If McCarron hadn’t come off the rail, we might have run ninth,” Jory said.

With Sea Cadet not running in the Preakness, McCarron, who won the race with Alysheba in 1987, has taken the mount on Honor Grades, a colt who has never run in California but who has strong West Coast links in trainer Rodney Rash and owners Bruce McNall, Wayne Gretzky and Magic Johnson.

Rounding out the California contingent here are Mane Minister, who finished third in the Derby; Corporate Report, ninth in the Derby and expected to set the pace today, and Whadjathink, who has tuned up for the Preakness with grass races at Santa Anita and Hollywood Park.

Corporate Report, 15-1 in the morning line, is being overlooked despite being trained by Wayne Lukas, who has won more recent big races at Pimlico than anybody else. Codex won Lukas’ first Preakness in 1980 and Lukas repeated with Tank’s Prospect in 1985. And in the last two years, with Criminal Type and Farma Way, Lukas has won the Pimlico Special, the track’s top race for older horses.

Farma Way didn’t get much attention before his Pimlico Special victory last Saturday, and two days later, when Lukas sent Corporate Report to the track for a workout, the colt was overshadowed by Strike The Gold, Best Pal and Mane Minister, who were also working.

“Hey, Wayne, they’re overlooking you again,” somebody said.

“They won’t be at 5:30 on Saturday,” said Lukas, referring to the approximate time of today’s ceremony in the winner’s circle.

Of course, Lukas is confident. He would be an impostor otherwise. Corporate Report, who didn’t run as a 2-year-old because of a bone injury, finally got to the races in March. After two victories in 14 days at Santa Anita, Corporate Report went out of town, finishing second to Quintana in the Rebel at Oaklawn Park, second to Olympio in the Arkansas Derby and then ran ninth at Louisville after having raced close to the pace in the Derby.

“I think this horse will be awful, awful tough in the Preakness,” Lukas said. “We cut it close to get this horse ready to run in the Derby. Actually, I think he was one outing away from being ready for that race. But now I think we’ve caught up to the other horses and we’re on target for this one. The way he’s worked at Pimlico is another real positive sign.”

Pat Day, who got lost in a Derby shuffle, enabling Chris Antley to ride Strike The Gold, will be back on Corporate Report today. Day has failed to win the Derby in nine tries and has given rides on winners Alysheba, Unbridled and Strike The Gold. But Day has thrived in the Preakness.

Replacing Gary Stevens, Day won for Lukas with Tank’s Prospect; he turned the tables on Unbridled with Summer Squall here last year, and in 1989 Day and Easy Goer were nosed out by Sunday Silence.

Horse Racing Notes

Pimlico, hit by a late-afternoon thunderstorm, wound up sloppy at the end of Friday’s program. There is a 40% chance of rain this afternoon, with temperatures dropping about 20 degrees to 70. . . . Strike The Gold had a strong race on a drying-out track in the Blue Grass at Keeneland. . . . Best Pal ran a close third to Dinard on an off track at Santa Anita, and Mane Minister, Corporate Report, Hansel and Whadjathink have also won on off tracks. . . . “My horse has never run in the mud, but I think he should be able to handle it,” said Ron McAnally, Olympio’s trainer.

Double Booked, a 6-year-old gelding who won at Pimlico two weeks ago, scored an upset Friday in the $150,000 Early Times Dixie Handicap, beating Chas’ Whim by 1 1/4 lengths on the turf. Opening Verse, the even-money favorite, finished third, another half-length back. Double Booked, ridden by Pat Day, paid $10.20 to win, running 1 1/8 miles on a firm course in 1:47, a Pimlico record.

Opening Verse, fifth in the nine-horse field after three-quarters of a mile, rallied through the stretch. “He breaks slow every time he runs,” said Chris McCarron, who rode Opening Verse. “He is usually good enough to overcome it.” . . . Wide Country, another local horse, won the $250,000 Black-Eyed Susan at Pimlico, beating the late-running John’s Decision by a neck. It was another half-length back to Nalees Pin in third place. Favored Wide Country, paying $6.40, was ridden by Santos Chavez and ran 1 1/8 miles on a sloppy track in 1:51 1/5. Wide Country, with eight consecutive stakes victories at Laurel and Pimlico, has not been beaten since November of 1990. McCarron rode John’s Decision.

In blowouts through the stretch by Preakness horses Friday, Strike The Gold was timed in :24 for a quarter of a mile and Olympio ran in :23 3/5. “My horse will run real good,” McAnally said. “This is no discredit to the Derby winner, but on the other hand, I think they have us to beat.” . . . Olympio is one of five Preakness horses who will run with Lasix, the medication commonly given to horses with bleeding problems. The others are Best Pal, Whadjathink, Mane Minister and Hansel. Mistakenly, the Pimlico official program doesn’t show Hansel and Olympio as Lasix horses.

There are four other stakes on the Preakness card, the richest being the $150,000 Maryland Budweiser Breeders’ Cup, at six furlongs for 3-year-olds and up. Shuttleman, who ran the same distance in 1:08 3/5 at Gulfstream Park in his last start, will be favored. . . . Trainer Dick Lundy, who trains Opening Verse, said that Dinard is at owner Allen Paulson’s farm near Del Mar, recovering from the knee injury that knocked him out of the Kentucky Derby. “We hope that he’ll be able to run again this fall,” Lundy said. “The X-rays were good and all it will take is rest. I think about what he would have done in the Derby, especially because the California horses he beat ran so well in the race.”

The 116th Preakness Stakes

Post positions for the second leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown today at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore.

No. Horse Jockey Trainer Odds 1 Corporate Report Pat Day Wayne Lukas 15-1 2 Mane Minister Alex Solis Juan Gonzalez 12-1 3 Strike The Gold Chris Antley Nick Zito 9-5 4 Hansel Jerry Bailey Frank Brothers 9-2 5 Best Pal Gary Stevens Ian Jory 7-2 6 Honor Grades Chris McCarron Rodney Rash 20-1 7 Olympio Eddie Delahoussaye Ron McAnally 5-2 8 Whadjathink Jorge Velasquez Michael Whittingham 30-1

Post time: 2:35 p.m. TV: Channel 7