The absence of Nyquist would leave a massive hole in what was shaping up as a cracking field for the Belmont.
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It was 10 years ago when Derby victor Barbaro shattered bones in his right hind leg at the start of the Preakness. This race was essentially decided in the first 400 yards.
Unified: The Jimmy Jerkens-trained son of Candy Ride is unbeaten in three career starts and took the Peter Pan over Governor Malibu.
What does chap me a bit is that I’m pretty sure Nyquist would have at least finished second instead of getting nailed in the last jump by late-charging Cherry Wine. He moved him into the three or four path off the rail and he let him run way too fast the first quarter mile.
Early Saturday, an anonymous better placed an $80,000 win bet on Todd Pletcher’s Stradivari, a lightly-raced colt who had won his past two races by a combined 25 length, but was making a big step up in class in the Preakness. That’s what always happens in horse racing.
And then it was all Exaggerator – no kidding.
Exaggerator won by 3 1/2 lengths over Cherry Wine, another closer helped by the early pace. “What a great run”, Nyquist’s trainer Doug O’Neill said. American Pharoah won the Preakness in similarly sloppy conditions in 2015.
Both the Desormeauxs and Romans said they plan to take their horses to the Belmont in three weeks, while O’Neill was skeptical about his thoroughbred’s immediate future. “Nyquist is such a great horse”. They’re not machines. Being 8-for-8, we kept thinking that this horse is never going to lose, but they all lose one time or another. But like some others have said, had he strangled the horse when he wanted to get out to the lead, many would be up in arms as well. “They stayed really wide”, Kent said. “To me it looked like Nyquist was trying to establish an outward position, maybe in the four path. He was jockeying for position all the way down the back side”.
On another rainy morning at Pimlico, Desormeaux guided Exaggerator around the shed row of the track’s stakes barn, showing off a bright-eyed colt he often boasts recovers well.
He said he is looking forward to running against Nyquist again.
Nyquist was 8-0 entering the race and Exaggerator was 0-4 against Nyquist.
Strangely, it emptied as a large number of the party-goers headed for the gates when the entertainment finished about an hour before the main race.
Video clips of the Black Eyed Susan showing Gutierrez being cut off, boxed in and hitting the rail as he fought to keep Land Over Sea from clipping the hooves of the horses in front of him were being shared and posted on social media. “And he just blew up and felt like King Kong. So I’m very happy”, O’Neill said Sunday. That number seems dubious. That was a five percent increase from last year’s peak with American Pharaoh.
Exaggerator bucked recent history Saturday by beating out Kentucky Derby victor Nyquist to capture the Preakness.
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But anyone expecting a battle to the line were to be disappointed as Exaggerator ran right past his rival to score in decisive fashion and become the first horse since 1993 to win the Preakness after coming second in the Kentucky Derby.
