Free House Dominates Final Preakness Workout Linemaker Says Silver Charm, Captain Bodgit Will Top Field
“There’s no Seattle Slew out there,” said Gary Capuano, the trainer of Captain Bodgit, who lost the Kentucky Derby by a head. “It’s a solid crop of 3-year-olds. There’s no one horse who stands out.”
But when five of the 10 colts expected to enter the Preakness staged their final workouts on a chilly Tuesday morning at Pimlico Race Course, one did stand out: Free House - winner of the Santa Anita Derby and third in the Kentucky Derby - who rocketed half a mile in 0:45.35 seconds and even astonished his trainer.
“It was very fast,” said Paco Gonzalez, who trains the California colt. “I hope it wasn’t too much. I would have tried to wave him down in the stretch, but I was up where he couldn’t have seen or heard me.”
If Free House had heard Gonzalez or the other trainers clustered at the side of the track for their final workouts, he might have heard a chorus of whistles. The gray colt trailed Silver Charm in the Kentucky Derby by 3-1/2 lengths but beat him twice before that, by a nose in the Santa Anita Derby and by three-quarters of a length in the San Felipe.
In his workout Tuesday morning, he had the trainer’s brother Sal in the saddle as he flew the first eighth of a mile in 0:11.35 seconds, the quarter mile in 0:22.35, three-eighths in 0:33.35 and galloped out 5 furlongs in 0:58.15.
“The track did appear to be fast today,” Paco Gonzalez said. “But he seemed to do it easy enough.”
In the Preakness, the jockey on Free House will be Kent Desormeaux, who rode him in the Santa Anita Derby and in three earlier races in California, and who started his career in Maryland. He replaces David Flores, who rode Free House in the San Felipe and the Kentucky Derby.
“One reason was that he knows the track so well,” Gonzalez said, “that I won’t have to give him any instructions.”
Clem Florio, the linemaker at Pimlico, agreed that the workout was sensational and added: “The rider never even asked him to run. But regardless, in my estimate he will be third choice behind Silver Charm and Captain Bodgit.”
The workouts were held one day after Silver Charm conducted his final formal work before Saturday’s Preakness, going an easy five-eighths of a mile in 1:01.35 under his exercise rider, Joe Steiner. The horse’s trainer, Bob Baffert, clocked him in 13 seconds for the first eighth of a mile and 25 for the first quarter.
Captain Bodgit, winner of the Florida Derby and Wood Memorial and second in the Kentucky Derby, worked half a mile in 0:48.25 seconds. He received a pat on the back from Capuano, who said, “It was perfect, a nice easy breeze.”
George Steinbrenner’s Concerto, ninth in the Derby, drilled 5 furlongs in 1:00.15 with Mike Smith riding for the first time and rendering this verdict: “He worked great. He worked well within himself, and didn’t turn a hair.”