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Field takes shot at Pegasus ... a long shot
Associated Press
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Friday, May 19
Can anyone beat Fusiachi Pegasus in the Preakness?
Well, Saturday's second favorite, Red Bullet, ran against
Fusiachi Pegasus in the Wood Memorial and was beaten
4½ lengths.
Red Bullet's trainer Joe Orseno told me that in that race
his horse didn't run like itself. Red Bullet got caught
inside and had to move sooner than he wanted and as a
result was up much closer to the pace than Orseno
wanted him to be. In the Preakness, Orseno plans to take
Red Bullet back. But the idea of beating Fusiachi Pegasus
is hard to believe.
In Fusiachi Pegasus' workout (at Churchill Downs)
earlier this week, when he ran 59, the jockey was sitting
straight up on him. This horse just makes everything he
does look easy. And I think Fusiachi Pegasus will make
things look easy again on Saturday.
Jerry Bailey will be aboard Red Bullet, but this is a horse
jockeys just don't seem to love. He's only run four times,
but Bailey took off him to ride Anees, who is now out of
the picture. Alex Solis had him the last two race and now
Solis is with Robert Frankel and Aptitude. Now Jerry
Bailey comes back to ride Red Bullet. We'll see what happens.
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BALTIMORE -- Trainer Bob Baffert, never more than a length
away from a wisecrack, knows how Kentucky Derby winner Fusaichi
Pegasus can lose the Preakness: Load him in the gate backward.
"These other horses are going to have to run the race of their
lives," said Baffert, who won the Derby and Preakness with Silver
Charm (1997) and Real Quiet (1998). "This Derby winner is an
extraordinary horse."
But with eight starters in the Preakness compared with 19 in the
Derby, he added, "You take a shot."
Baffert will saddle Captain Steve, eighth in the Derby and
winless in four starts this year. The field of eight 3-year-old
colts at Pimlico on Saturday is smallest since Hansel beat seven
rivals in the 1991 Preakness.
Fusaichi Pegasus' impressive performance as the first winning
Kentucky Derby favorite since Spectacular Bid in 1979 has made him
the early 3-5 favorite. He is the first odds-on Preakness choice
since the Bid won at odds of 1-2.
"I'm always apprehensive about a race, but that's just me,"
Neil Drysdale, Fusaichi Pegasus' trainer, said Friday. "It is a
good field."
Fusaichi Pegasus is not stabled in the barn holding the other
seven starters, prompting suggestions Drysdale is hiding something.
"It's quiet," Drysdale said of his decision to keep the colt,
whom he calls playful and full of himself, away from the stakes
barn.
"He's doing the right thing," Baffert said. "His obligation
is to his horse, himself and his owner. If he leads him out there,
believe me that horse is ready to run."
Ed Nahem, owner of Hugh Hefner, named for Nahem's friend of
Playboy fame, thinks his colt has a chance for second money of
$200,000. First money is $650,000
Some other Preakness trainers, however, don't want to hear they
are running for second money.
|  | | Unbeatable? Maybe, but seven horses will take the challenge of beating Fusiachi Pegasus in the Preakness Stakes. |
"I've always been told, 'Don't duck one horse,"' said Joe
Orseno, trainer of Red Bullet, the 9-2 second favorite. Red Bullet
finished second, 4-plus lengths behind Fusaichi Pegasus, in the Wood
Memorial on April 15, then skipped the Derby.
"You can't say he is not beatable," Orseno said. "These are
racehorses, not machines. I don't want to take anything away from
him. I just feel I want to try him again."
Fusaichi Pegasus has won five straight races since finishing
second Dec. 11 in his only 2-year-old start.
There has not been a Preakness winner who did not start in the
Derby since Deputed Testamony in 1983. Hugh Hefner and Snuck In
also did not start in the Derby two weeks ago.
"There's nothing to say about Fusaichi Pegasus," said Steve
Asmussen, trainer of Snuck In, runner-up in the Arkansas Derby on
April 15 in only his second start of the year. "He won the
Kentucky Derby. It was the most impressive Derby I've seen in
several years."
Asmussen, whose colt will be ridden by brother Cash, a top
jockey in Europe, then added: "You don't duck one horse."
The other Derby starters in the 1 3/16-mile Preakness are
Impeachment (third), High Yield (15th) and Hal's Hope (16th).
Trainer D. Wayne Lukas, who has won the Preakness five times, is
puzzled by High Yield's Derby performance given his previous three
starts: first in the Fountain of Youth, second in the Florida Derby
and first in the Blue Grass.
"He might not run a winning race Saturday, but he'll have
something to say about it," Lukas said.
Lukas thinks Red Bullet has the best chance of scoring an upset. "Joe is in a good position," Lukas said. "He has a good quality horse. He had a nice break."
Deputed Testamony had won a race just a week before he won the
Preakness in 1983. Neither Red Bullet nor Snuck In has raced in
five weeks.
Drysdale said two of his concerns are the drop in distance from
the Derby to the Preakness and the fact that the two races are only
two weeks apart. The three weeks between the Wood Memorial and the
Derby is the shortest time between races for the colt, who was
bought as a yearling for $4 million by Fusao Sekiguchi of Japan.
Orseno said he and owner Frank Stronach decided within a half
hour after the Wood Memorial, in which Red Bullet slowed in the
stretch, to skip the Derby.
"We decided if we're going to try to beat him in the Derby,
let's do it the right way and not run back in three weeks," Orseno
said.
Snuck In, who won four of seven starts as a 2-year-old, probably
would have started in the Kentucky Derby if he had won the Arkansas
Derby, said Asmussen, who gives the impression he doesn't mind
missing the Derby.
"The responsibility I have or I feel is not to the race, but to
the horse," he said. "I feel it (the Preakness) is something he
can physically handle."
Oh, yes, Baffert had another idea about how Captain Steve might
win.
"Give him a head start," he said.
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