With the promise of another potential triple crown victor in Nyquist, a duel with a longtime rival in Exaggerator and the freshness of last year’s triple crown win by American Pharaoh, there was certainly a lot of expectation and buzz around this year’s Preakness Stakes.
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As for the second-place finisher, Cherry Wine, trainer Dale Romans walked away from Baltimore on Saturday with his head high. The heavily favored Nyquist, who many thought would cruise at Pimlico before heading to Belmont to run for the Triple Crown, rounded out the top three.
“You lose a lot of the luster after a Derby victor is beat, because the Triple Crown chance is annihilated”.
O’Neill congratulated the Desormeaux brothers for masterminding Exaggerator’s win.
Not Saturday, not in this Preakness. In the stretch, Exaggerator took the lead. Cherry Wine returned $9.80 and $4.20, and Nyquist paid $2.20 to show.
“I wanted to strangle him when I saw him go to the rail”, Keith Desormeaux said. “Nyquist is such an fantastic horse and he still ran a great race”. “Regardless he ran an extraordinary race”, he said. That included a runner-up finish in the Derby two weeks ago.
O’Neill insisted on Friday that rain wouldn’t be a factor, and perhaps it wasn’t.
Inclement weather added an extra element to the Preakness as the track was sloppy, but Exaggerator clearly had no trouble with the off-track in getting the better of Nyquist for the first time in their fifth meeting.
And for the first time, he lost.
He said Exaggerator was moving up so smoothly and effortlessly that his rider said he had to slow him down approaching quarter pole.
“It was an awesome race and Exaggerator is an fantastic horse”, Desormeaux said. “As far as rain or shine, we’re not going to change anything shoeing-wise He’s going to wear the same shoes he’s got on”. “It’s not someone who needs to grind down his opponent”.
Pramedya is owned by Roy and Gretchen Jackson, who owned Barbaro, the 2006 Kentucky Derby who pulled up lame during the Preakness.
On this day, they had to settle for third.
“I personally never had doubt that I’d get here”, he said.
Through a string of races in California and the biggest one of them all in Kentucky, they chased Nyquist.
Winning jockey Kent Desormeaux wondered if Nyquist was done in by taking a hard path to the finish line.
Although he held a narrow advantage into the first turn, Nyquist was already held out wasting precious ground as Gutierrez either could not, or would not cede his forward position as the pace was contested. “They tell me the numbers are going to be strong”.
“You can’t deny what’s happening here”, Desormeaux said. We did. They didn’t. “I’ve always felt we had an exceptional talent in Exaggerator”. There was nothing we could do.
“What a great run”, Nyquist’s trainer Doug O’Neill said.
“They went pretty good early on”, O’Neill said.
It may well be a long time before there is another one, because the reasons why there were 37 years between Affirmed and Pharoah will still exist next year and – presumably – for decades to come.
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American Pharoah made us believe again, and Nyquist reminded us Saturday that nothing really changed when that interminable Triple Crown drought ended last June.
