Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan heading to Preakness

Mystik Dan, the horse who received the Kentucky Derby by a nostril within the race’s closest end in additional than a half-century, is heading to the Preakness subsequent weekend in spite of everything, conserving alive the possibility of one other Triple Crown winner.

Coach Kenny McPeek introduced the choice Saturday after talking with house owners and weighing the professionals and cons of racing his horse once more on a brief, two-week turnaround. He initially expressed concern about that timeframe after Mystik Dan ran poorly beneath the identical circumstances in November.

However he favored sufficient of what he noticed in coaching to take an opportunity.

“All methods go,” McPeek stated Saturday. “The horse is doing incredible.”

The opportunity of Mystik Dan, who completed simply forward of Sierra Leone and Ceaselessly Younger within the 1¼-mile race at Churchill Downs final weekend due to an ideal, rail-skimming trip by jockey Brian Hernandez Jr., not going to the Preakness subsequent Saturday raised questions in regards to the standing of the distinguished race. Twice within the earlier 4 years, the Derby winner didn’t run — a product of assorted circumstances.

However the lure of going to Baltimore was an excessive amount of to go up for McPeek, who received the pandemic-delayed 2020 Preakness with filly Swiss Skydiver by beating Derby champion Genuine.

Nobody has received each the Derby and Preakness because the final Triple Crown champion, Justify in 2018 for Corridor of Famer Bob Baffert. Mystik Dan doing so would arrange a primary: a Triple Crown on the road at Saratoga Race Course, the place the Belmont is being held for the following two years whereas the race’s longtime house on Lengthy Island is being torn down and rebuilt as a part of an enormous $455 million reconstruction mission.

However Mystik Dan may not be the Preakness favourite. That distinction seemingly belongs to Muth, one in all two horses being introduced by Baffert, who was once more not allowed to enter horses within the Derby due to a ban on him by Churchill Downs brought on by Medina Spirit failing a drug take a look at after ending first within the race in 2021.

The one different horse from the Derby anticipated to run within the Preakness is Seventeenth-place finisher Simply Metal, educated by 88-year-old Corridor of Famer D. Wayne Lukas.