Preakness favorite to arrive fashionably late in Baltimore
BALTIMORE (AP) -- The Preakness favorite will arrive in Baltimore a mere 14 hours before the race. It hardly sounds like a formula for success, but trainer Bobby Frankel wouldn't have it any other way.
Most of the field is stabled in the stakes barn at Pimlico Race Course this week, adjusting to the surroundings and the track. Not Medaglia d'Oro, who is spending his time in New York, while Frankel is in California.
The plan is for Medaglia d'Oro to leave Belmont by van at midnight Saturday and arrive at Pimlico around 4 a.m. Horse and trainer will hook up Saturday morning at the stakes barn, hours before the second leg of the Triple Crown.
"We're just following a pattern we have, where we routinely ship from Southern California to Northern California for races," Frankel said Thursday in a conference call. "We've won about 75 percent doing that. This pattern of shipping is common in Europe."
Medaglia d'Oro, with a new rider in Jerry Bailey, will attempt to rebound from a fourth-place finish behind winner War Emblem in the Kentucky Derby.
Frankel didn't blame jockey Laffit Pincay Jr. for his colt's disappointing run in the Derby, but hoped a switch in jockeys would produce a better result.
"Jerry and I have been lucky over the last two years," Frankel said. "He's won a lot of Grade Is for me. Laffit did nothing wrong, but I'm on the East Coast now and I'll use East Coast riders."
Frankel expects Medaglia d'Oro to run a better race.