The Preakness, beset in two of its past five runnings with the absence of the Kentucky Derby winner, got a boost Saturday when trainer Kenny McPeek announced he will run Derby winner Mystik Dan in Baltimore. This followed hints that McPeek might have relented as he carefully studied his colt through the week since Mystik Dan won by a nose May 4 in the first triple photo finish at the Derby since 1947.
“Mystik Dan is well and acts like he’ll be ready to run in the Preakness,” the Kentucky-based McPeek said in a statement. “I’ve discussed the decision with owners Lance Gasaway, Daniel Hamby, Brent Gasaway and Scot Hamby, and we plan to run May 18th. The colt’s had a good week. He will travel to Baltimore on Sunday.”
McPeek added of the 38-year-old jockey, the human hero of the Derby, “Brian Hernandez will ride. [Mystik Dan] didn’t win the Derby without the job Brian did. I’m thrilled Brian is finally getting the credit he deserves.”
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McPeek, a 61-year-old longtime horseman who has trained since 1985 and works from Lexington, scored his first Derby win and third Triple Crown race win when Mystik Dan wound up edging second-place Sierra Leone and third-place Forever Young largely because of Hernandez’s rail-hugging ride. McPeek became the first trainer since Ben Jones in 1952 to win both the coveted filly race, the Kentucky Oaks, on the Friday of Derby weekend and then the Derby on Saturday.
McPeek had stated late this week that he would take at least much of the time allotted before settling on a decision. And on the evening after the Derby ended, he had pointed back to what he considered his own misjudgment of last fall, when he ran Mystik Dan at Churchill Downs on Nov. 12 and then, after the colt impressed with a maiden win, ran him again Nov. 25.
“And he coughed up a lung infection on me,” McPeek said. “Learned a little lesson there with him.” Mystik Dan ran fifth in that race of Nov. 25, as he did in the Smarty Jones Stakes on Jan. 1, before winning the Southwest at Oaklawn in Arkansas on Feb. 3 and finishing third in the Arkansas Derby on March 30.
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With seven more months of seasoning and growth since last November, the 3-year-old will not join the recent Derby winners who have skipped the Preakness. Those were Country House in 2019 and long-shot winner Rich Strike in 2022. Before 2019, the previous Derby winner to miss the Preakness had been Grindstone in 1996, after he won by a nose over Cavonnier in a Derby photo finish while suffering an injury that ended his career. The decision to run in the Preakness has become more fraught in recent years with heightened attention to the well-being of the animals, especially with the racehorses less durable than in the sport’s heights at the middle of last century.
Since Grindstone, 11 Derby winners have gone on to win the Preakness: Silver Charm in 1997, Real Quiet in 1998, Charismatic in 1999, War Emblem in 2002, Funny Cide in 2003, Smarty Jones in 2004, Big Brown in 2008, I’ll Have Another in 2012, California Chrome in 2014, American Pharoah in 2015 and Justify in 2018.
Only one of those winners, Charismatic in 1999, had won the Derby with odds longer than those of Mystik Dan, who went off as 18-1. Charismatic had gone off at 31-1 in Louisville before starting in Baltimore as a doubted fifth choice at 8-1 and winning by a length and a half. From among the 11 to pull off the double, only American Pharoah and Justify won the Triple Crown.
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Mystik Dan’s presence will create something of a duel atmosphere given the presence of Muth, the Arkansas Derby winner who missed the Derby because his trainer, Bob Baffert, remained under an extended Churchill Downs suspension. Pimlico has not suspended Baffert, who in 2021 ran Derby winner Medina Spirit even though Baffert stayed home in California after Medina Spirit’s disqualification from a Derby win for a legal medicine still present in his system after the allowed date. Medina Spirit ran third in the Preakness, and then Baffert did not enter the 2022 event before in 2023 bringing National Treasure, who won it on the same day Baffert’s Havnameltdown broke down and died in an earlier race.
In that Arkansas Derby of March 30, Muth ran two lengths ahead of second-place Just Steel, who ran 4¼ lengths ahead of Mystik Dan.
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