Preakness Stakes (Grade 1)

MICHAEL McCarthy and John Fradkin didn’t agree where to run Rombauer after the colt’s third-place finish behind champion Essential Quality and the well-regarded Highly Motivated in Keeneland’s Toyota Blue Grass Stakes.

McCarthy wanted to fulfill a lifelong goal of running in the Kentucky Derby with a charge he felt belonged.

He’d been around the classics before, working as an assistant to recently elected Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher, and tasted some of the big time thanks to City Of Light’s victories in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile and Pegasus World Cup. But the Derby is the Derby, and the big carrot on the end of the stick for every North American trainer that works at the top level.

Fradkin, who runs a small commercial breeding operation with his wife Diane, wasn’t swayed by the prospect of blue skies, big hats and bourbon-drenched juleps on the first Saturday in May at Churchill Downs.

Fradkin wanted to run Rombauer, a colt bred out of a winless mare and originally slated for the auction ring, where he could win and make some cash. He liked the $1 million Preakness Stakes on May 15th at Pimlico.

The owner and trainer discussed the decision, and, like another conversation in February about whether to run in against some of the top California colts in a major prep race at Santa Anita Park or an easier spot in Northern California, they clashed.

“We had a pretty heated discussion,” Fradkin said of the debate over the Derby, which Rombauer qualified for based on the 34 points earned in three prep races.

“I can understand why Michael wanted him to run, but I think he can understand why I didn’t want to run him. Michael and I are a really good team. There’s going to be some clash at times because I come at it from a handicapping angle and I’m not a horseman.”

“I was bullish on running the horse in the Kentucky Derby,” McCarthy said. “I had mentioned it a couple times to John and Diane. … You know, the Kentucky Derby is obviously the greatest two minutes in sports.”

Fradkin, just like he did convincing McCarthy to run Rombauer in the Listed El Camino Real Derby at Golden Gate instead of the Robert B. Lewis at Santa Anita, won the debate. Rombauer, who won the El Camino Real Derby to earn an automatic bid to the Triple Crown’s second jewel, backed up owner’s decision with a three and a half-length victory in the Preakness.

First classic

Rombauer, the 11/1 fifth choice in the field of 10 for the mile and three sixteenth Preakness, gave McCarthy and the Fradkins their first classic victories in their Triple Crown debut.

Jockey Flavien Prat, riding the colt for the first time, collected his second after riding the elevated-by-disqualification Country House in the 2019 Kentucky Derby.

“I’m not sure how long it took us to get around there, but it was the greatest minute and 40 something seconds, 50 seconds, I don’t know,” McCarthy said. “I would have liked to run the horse in the Kentucky Derby. John made some valid points and, as I said to him earlier, we probably would have done the same things two weeks earlier, but I’m glad we got it done today.”

Rombauer, who would have been sold as a two-year-old in Ocala if not for the coronavirus pandemic, also ended what slim chance remained of Medina Spirit being in the hunt for the Triple Crown.

That possibility most likely ended less than a week before the Preakness when Bob Baffert, who trains the colt for Saudi businessman Amr Zedan, revealed the colt failed a drug test after the Kentucky Derby.

Airwaves

Baffert, who sent out Medina Spirit to what would be a record-breaking seventh Derby win, took to the airwaves in the immediate hours and days after he said the colt came up positive for 21 picograms (per millilitre of blood) of betamethasone.

He initially claimed ignorance, then blamed potential contamination from a groom with cough syrup in his system urinating on bedding and Medina Spirit eating it. During an interview on Fox News, Baffert claimed to be a victim of “cancel culture,” before ultimately saying the potential positive came from the anti-fungal ointment Otomax being used to treat Medina Spirit’s hind-end dermatitis.

Baffert didn’t show at Pimlico – he said he didn’t want to be a distraction – but Zedan did and made the short walk from the barn area to the paddock with a small entourage that included his attorney. The small number of fans on the track apron – Pimlico limited the Preakness Day crowd to 10,000 – were supportive of the Derby first-place finisher and his team.

Gamblers, who bet a record $112.5 million on the Preakness card, sent Medina Spirit and jockey John Velazquez to the post the 2/1 favourite and just ahead of 3/1 second choice Midnight Bourbon and Baffert’s other runner, the 7/2 Concert Tour.

Rombauer, not quite an unknown but still somewhat discounted because his only two wins came on turf and synthetic, and Prat tracked the leaders in midpack most of the way while Midnight Bourbon and Medina Spirit sparred on the front end.

Those two took the field into the stretch, just ahead of Japanese invader France Go De Ina, before Prat guided Rombauer to the outside for his run.

Rombauer exploded in the lane with no response from the frontrunners. Midnight Bourbon held well for second, two lengths in front of Medina Spirit, who was four lengths clear of Keepmeinmind.

“Down the backside he was travelling well and was passing horses one by one,” Prat said. “I was pretty confident going to the three-eighths pole, and then I was behind (Midnight Bourbon and Medina Spirit). I thought, ‘well, if he switched (leads) and give me a good kick I might be able to run them down.”

McCarthy and Fradkin didn’t disagree about what to do next with Rombauer and the colt shipped to Belmont Park the day after the Preakness to prepare for the mile and a half Belmont Stakes on June 5th. And while Fradkin didn’t rule out a return to the grass down the road, a surface where Rombauer won his debut last July at Del Mar before finishing a close sixth in a small stakes there in early September, the colt appears to headed for more major dirt races.

“All along I actually thought that was our best chance of a race to win, the Belmont, because he’s going to like the distance,” Fradkin said. “Now that we’ve won this one, it kind of takes the pressure off to do that.

“That race is only three weeks out, and the spacing isn’t superb to going into a mile and a half race with just three weeks’ rest.”