It took five tries, but Exaggerator finally got the better of Nyquist. Kentucky Derby victor Nyquist sought to take the next step forward in the hunt for the Triple Crown.
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Cherry Wine was second, while Nyquist finished third.
On a rain-soaked spring day in Baltimore, Maryland, Exaggerator – ridden by jockey Kent DesOrmeaux and trained by Kent’s brother, Keith – took charge at the 3/16th pole and outlasted the tiring Nyquist down the stretch.
“The most important thing is this horse’s ability to recover from his efforts”, Keith Desormeaux said.
“It’s a bummer, of course, but our horse, God, he’s such an awesome horse”, O’Neill said. They went pretty good early on but I just wanted to see a good, clean trip and trouble-free.
Exaggerator learned his lesson two weeks ago when he ran out of track, chasing Run for the Roses victor Nyquist from too far behind and having to settle for second. “He has so much speed away from the gate, ideally, he gets good position wherever that is and he runs a big race”.
“He gets over this track”, the trainer said, “like a duck to water”.
“Hats off to the Exaggerator camp”, O’Neill said.
“These turns, you want to paint the fence”, he said.
“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”.
As he watched his Hall of Fame brother swing his dark bay colt 3-wide around the far turn at Pimlico Race Course, Keith Desormeaux knew that day had arrived before a record crowd of 135,256 who braved the rain.
Exaggerator covered the 1 3/16-mile distance in 1:58:31.
The quest to win all three of horse racing’s most legendary races is a almost impossible one for all sorts of reasons, and it was silly to think that just because a very special horse finally broke through after almost four decades it had somehow cleared a path for the next one.
After losing to Nyquist in their previous four meetings, the 5-2 second betting choice broke through with a dominating performance at the racetrack where his jockey launched his Hall of Fame career almost 30 years ago and his trainer apprenticed under the late prominent trainer Charles Hadry. “You have to think that the track means a lot to his performances, but his fast-track performances are not bad, either”.
In three weeks, Desormeaux is committed to running Exaggerator in the Belmont Stakes, the final leg in the Triple Crown. Maybe just maybe, he figured, Nyquist would be a little exhausted and his horse’s exceptional powers of recovery would flip the script.
The race came hours after two thoroughbreds died at the track. “Our horse, God, he’s such an incredible horse”. Nyquist won eight of his first races but lost his ninth race in the Preakness Stakes on Saturday at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore.
Homeboykris won the first race, then collapsed and died after having his picture taken in the winner’s circle. The Jacksons’ 4-year-old filly Pramedya was euthanized on the track Saturday after she broke down during the fourth race.
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American Pharoah had glided over the muck on his way to the Triple Crown in 2015, but Nyquist could not do the same. Trainer Larry Jones said Eight Belles “ran the race of her life” and added that “there was no way to save her” and that “she couldn’t stand”.
