133RD PREAKNESS STAKES : Discounting Derby
Posted on Saturday, May 17, 2008
Besides winning the Arkansas Derby, Curlin and Gayego have something else in common.
It’s much less flattering, however.
Both horses essentially were eliminated from the Kentucky Derby, the first jewel in racing’s Triple Crown, just after the starting gates opened.
For Curlin, it was a baptism by the most extreme fire last year.
Making just his fourth career start, Curlin quickly found himself behind a wall of horses for the first time after being slightly steadied, had dirt kicked in his face for the first time and was farther back than normal.
Curlin emerged from his learning experience to finish third, won the Preakness two weeks later and is now considered the best horse in the world.
To become the seventh Arkansas Derby winner to capture the Preakness, Gayego will have to beat maybe the second-best horse in the world, Big Brown, the unbeaten and unchallenged Kentucky Derby winner.
3 Big Brown’s towering 4 / 4-length Kentucky Derby victory stamped him the 1-2 program betting favorite for today’s 133 rd Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. Post time for the 1 3 / 16-mile classic is 5: 15 p.m. Central.
3 Despite being thrashed by 36 / 4 lengths in the Kentucky Derby, Gayego was made the 8-1 second choice — albeit distant — in the program. Like the Pimlico linemaker, Team Gayego, which includes exercise rider Jody Pieper of Hot Springs, is simply drawing a line through the colt’s last race. “He had no chance in the Derby,” Pieper said. Breaking just inside Big Brown from post 19, Gayego was off sluggish, steadied in heavy traffic passing the wire for the first turn and was rank on the first turn. Gayego was finished on the second turn and faded to 17 th, a noteworthy asterisk in a distinguished six-race career that includes three victories and two runner-up finishes.
Jockey Mike Smith, Gayego’s regular rider, said the colt also lost maybe a length at the start of the Arkansas Derby after losing his footing.
Attempting to ensure a sharper break, trainer Paulo Lobo equipped Gayego with blinkers after the May 3 Kentucky Derby. He will race in them for the first time today.
“Me and Paulo and Mike had talked about the blinkers, even before the Arkansas Derby,” said Pieper, who exercises horses at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs for trainer Dan Peitz, a Little Rock native. “They thought at some point he would need them.” After returning to California following the Kentucky Derby, Gayego galloped in blinkers and also broke from the gate wearing them, Pieper said.
The cup-shaped equipment, which restricts vision, is used by trainers to improve a horse’s concentration.
Horses also often show more early speed racing in blinkers.
Pieper, who was summoned to Baltimore after Lobo decided earlier in the week to run Gayego in the Preakness, said the colt was more focused in his morning gallops Thursday and Friday.
A three-quarter-length winner of the $ 1 million Grade II Arkansas Derby on April 12, Gayego is among three horses with Oaklawn connections in the projected 12-horse Preakness field. Tres Borrachos finished third in 3 the Arkansas Derby — 4 / 4 lengths behind Gayego — after setting the pace for the opening three-quarters of a mile. Riley Tucker ran sixth in the $ 250, 000 Grade III Southwest Stakes on Feb. 18. The hope, Pieper said, is the Preakness unfolds like the Arkansas Derby with Gayego (breaking from post 11 ) sitting just behind Tres Borrachos, but somehow keeping Big Brown pinned down on the rail. “Ideally, that’s what we wish could happen,” Pieper said. Pieper’s brief connection to the California-based Gayego came because of his longtime friendship with Smith, who regularly rode at Oaklawn throughout much of the 1980 s. Pieper said he was the best man at Smith’s wedding and his first jockey when he began work as a valet.
“Mike told Paulo that I was here and called and asked if I would gallop Gayego in Arkansas then go to Kentucky, too,” said Pieper. “I was at home when they called about going to the Preakness.” But Pieper said he’s glad they did.
“He’s better than he showed in the Derby,” Pieper said.
A better start might show just how much.
Gayego is trying to become the fourth Arkansas Derby winner in the past five years to capture the Preakness, following Smarty Jones in 2004, Afleet Alex in 2005 and Curlin last year.
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