Amid the deaths and scratches that surrounded this 12 months’s Kentucky Derby, the feel-good tales in regards to the winner, Mage, had been overshadowed. However there’s lots to love in regards to the fast-developing colt as he heads into the 148th operating of the Preakness Stakes on Saturday.
He was solely the third horse to win the Derby with out racing as a 2-year-old and the fourth to win it with solely three earlier begins. One other horse that did each? Justify, the latest Triple Crown winner, in 2018.
Mage’s solely two losses have come in opposition to Forte, the morning-line favourite for the Derby who was scratched the day of the race. Now Mage is the lone Derby contender within the Preakness, and his largest foe, First Mission, was scratched on Friday.
Mage is a dream for a Venezuelan staff — and for his small-time homeowners.
Mage’s coach, Gustavo Delgado Sr., received three Venezuelan Triple Crowns earlier than coming to the USA in 2014 to set his sights on profitable America’s largest races.
“I simply wished to get to the Kentucky Derby, and we did, however this horse, we knew he was very, superb,” mentioned Delgado Sr., who has saddled three horses within the Derby.
His son, Gustavo Delgado Jr., mentioned his father was impressed by the success of the Venezuelan connections who received the Derby and the Preakness with Canonero II in 1971.
“He grew up in a era the place everyone was speaking about it, and he all the time felt like he may accomplish that,” mentioned Delgado Jr., who’s his father’s assistant. “I keep in mind once I was a child, as a result of when he was profitable down in Venezuela, he would all the time inform me, ‘Someday, we must always go to the States and win a type of races.’”
Mage’s jockey, Javier Castellano, and his train rider, J.J. Delgado (no relation), are additionally from Venezuela. Castellano’s father and J.J. Delgado used to journey for Delgado Sr. there.
Castellano mentioned he was motivated heading into the Derby when he noticed the NBC broadcast’s point out of his 0‑for-15 file within the race. He has loved extra success within the Preakness, profitable in 2006 with Bernardini and in 2017 with Cloud Computing.
One other problem for the Delgados after they got here to the USA was discovering good horses and homeowners who believed in them. In Mage’s case, the Delgados teamed up with the bloodstock agent Ramiro Restrepo, whose household emigrated from Colombia earlier than he was born, on the Fasig‑Tipton 2‑12 months‑previous sale in Timonium, Md. They favored that the horse was a close to duplicate of his sire, Good Magic, who completed second within the Derby and fourth within the Preakness.
They favored him a lot that they went over their price range, spending $290,000. So that they referred to as up a couple of individuals to assist share the prices, together with the actual property investor Sam Herzberg and the entrepreneurs Brian Doxtator and Chase Chamberlin, whose Commonwealth app permits followers to purchase shares in racehorses for a little bit as $50.
And in order that melting pot of a gaggle rode Mage straight into the winner’s circle on the primary Saturday in Might, resulting in maybe the largest winner’s circle social gathering in Derby historical past — even Mage regarded small in the course of it.
About 70 of the 382 individuals who invested in Mage by means of Commonwealth had been there. Considered one of them was Norma Barnes-Euresti from Michigan. When her wheelchair bought caught on the monitor, Gerardo Corrales and Jose Ortiz, who had simply rode within the Derby, carried her the remainder of the best way.
“I don’t have legs in the present day, however I bought the journey of a lifetime,” she mentioned on NBC, talking in regards to the jockeys’ kindness and, in fact, her Triple Crown contender Mage.
First Mission is scratched as regulators apply further scrutiny.
After seven horses died at Churchill Downs forward of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes officers are taking a cautious method. First Mission, the 5-2 second alternative within the morning line, was scratched from the race early Friday morning with an unspecified left hind-ankle damage.
The colt is skilled by Brad Cox and owned by the Godolphin secure, which belongs to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai. First Mission was coming off a powerful victory within the Lexington Stakes final month at Keeneland, however his coach observed one thing was off after coaching on Wednesday, and on Friday, the veterinarian staff for 1/ST racing, which owns Pimlico Race Course, scratched the horse.
Michael Banahan, Godolphin U.S.A.’s director of bloodstock, mentioned First Mission can be despatched again to Lexington, Ky., for a full examination.
“They thought perhaps it was a minor subject with the left hind ankle — you simply actually couldn’t do correct diagnostics on web site, on the monitor,” Banahan mentioned. “He was doing nice at Pimlico. However that’s the best way it goes.”
The additional scrutiny is being prolonged to each horse competing right here over the weekend. Officers are requiring two veterinary authorizations earlier than a horse is allowed to run — one from the coach’s non-public vet, the opposite from the regulatory vet within the state the place the horse was stabled earlier than coming to Baltimore.
The scratch of First Mission makes this the primary time since 1986 that the Preakness can have solely seven horses, which makes an already weak area weaker. The second leg of the Triple Crown has not included just one Derby contender since 1948, when Quotation ran and received. He then prevailed within the Belmont Stakes and swept the Triple Crown.
Bob Baffert returns to the Triple Crown path.
The Corridor of Fame coach Bob Baffert is returning to the Triple Crown stage after his colt Medina Spirit failed a drug check after profitable the 2021 Kentucky Derby. Medina Spirit was allowed to run within the Preakness however completed a well-beaten third.
Baffert has since served a suspension handed down by Kentucky regulators and a two-year ban from the Derby and Churchill Downs. Final 12 months, Baffert was serving his Kentucky suspension through the Triple Crown, so the racing commissions in Maryland and New York stored him from the Preakness and the Belmont.
Now he returns with Nationwide Treasure, the fourth-place finisher within the Santa Anita Derby, to hunt a record-breaking eighth victory within the Preakness. He’s at the moment tied with the Nineteenth-century coach R. Wyndham Walden.
Baffert’s first three Derby-Preakness winners — Silver Appeal (1997), Actual Quiet (1998) and Struggle Emblem (2002) — had been unable to finish the Triple Crown sweep at Belmont Park. However the final two, American Pharoah in 2015 and Justify in 2018, bought the job accomplished.
The Corridor of Famer John Velazquez will likely be aboard Nationwide Treasure, who was 3-1 within the morning line. The colt has received solely as soon as however was aggressive within the premier races in California and Kentucky. He was third within the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile to Forte.
“I feel he matches right here,” Baffert instructed reporters this week. “He should step it up. He’s a horse that has not crammed into his body but, however we now have all the time been excessive on him. He hasn’t actually run a nasty race.”