2023 galloping Triple Crown thread

Preakness week.
2023 Preakness Stakes: Horse odds, post positions, jockeys - ESPN

 

Goin great

 

There’s a bigger problem.

This morning hurt my heart. Anyone who has talked with me or followed my writing knows how much I love the Alibi Breakfast, held Thursday each year before the Preakness Stakes (G1).

It is an age-old event for the racing community to gather in the Pimlico Race Course clubhouse dining room and welcome the visiting stars, pray for safe journeys, eat (and drink) well on nice white tablecloths, present the Old Hilltop Award for meritorious service to racing, the Jerry Frutkoff Award for best photograph from the prior year's Preakness, and the David F. Woods Award for best story.

It is traditional for the trainers and owners arriving from the Kentucky Derby (G1) to, one at a time, give their excuses—their alibis—for why their horses lost on the first Saturday in May and then explain how they can turn the table in the Preakness. It is a time for storytelling and silly jokes. It is a time for mingling. The breakfast renews ties to the past in the present for the future. It is full of hovering spirits.

Today, it was not.

The dining room was half-empty May 18 but full of murmurs of concern. None of the Kentucky Derby runners except the winner Mage are even in the Preakness, the first time since 1948 only one horse pressed forward to the second leg of racing's Triple Crown.

So, no developing rivalries to follow. Just some shiny and suspect new shooters from the second or even third divisions of the national racing armies of powerful trainers Brad Cox, Steve Asmussen, and Chad Brown.

Not a single representative from those three camps bothered to attend. This, not that you need me to remind you, is for one of the sport's most important races. These more important people couldn't be bothered.

They simply ignored the ceremonial breakfast that is part of what makes the Preakness so special. Back in the day, not that long ago, the trainers always talked about how they most looked forward to the Preakness among the Triple Crown races because of its relative intimacy and the personal care from management. I can't speak to the management today, at this moment, other than to say I'm not thrilled with it, but I found the absence of the connections disgraceful. You used to see the trainers banter and rib each other, surrounded by family and owners, putting away the bacon and hash browns, having a good old time. Now, they act like they have something to hide and nothing they owe.​

https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-ra...alibi-for-not-supporting-preakness-traditions

 

Is there a list of field sizes for the Preakness over the years? Seems like awfully few horses have run in the past few.

 

The Preakness has become the red-headed stepchild of the Triple Crown in recent years, especially with the deteriorating conditions at Pimlico, but one Derby horse? Amazing.

 

A Baffert horse put down? Shocking.

 

The equine equivalent of "thoughts and prayers?"

 

Man, there isn’t a whole lot of value on the Preakness board today.

 

Red Route One. Great fucking name.

 

Bob Baffert's crocodile tears are nauseating. NBC's fawning is worse.

 

Show some respect. He did just lose a horse today.