Curlin shows heart

BALTIMORE – The horse stumbled from the starting gate, had trouble negotiating the notoriously tight turns at Pimlico Race Course, and at the top of the stretch saw Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense pass by in a flash.

And then Curlin, in his fourth month as a racehorse, blazed a path into Preakness Stakes history.

This horse, ridden by Robby Albarado, already is being called a monster, after he dug in and chased down Street Sense, and the two waged their duel down the stretch, before Curlin’s head bobbed in front under the wire, finishing half of a head in front.

Saturday’s 132nd Preakness Stakes featured the closest finish in a decade and also tied a race record for the fastest, 1:53.46 for the 1 3/16th-mile course.

The race, seen by a Preakness record crowd of 121,263, drew immediate and unanimous raves.

“It is a classic,” said Jess Jackson, who put together the ownership group that purchased Curlin after his first race in February. “It was almost a match race at the end, if you know what I mean. We had one champion with another potential champion challenging him.”

“This is the stage this horse was meant for,” said trainer Steve Asmussen, who had watched Curlin win that first race and suggested that some of his owners buy him.

Although Street Sense had been the favorite, Curlin had been the favorite at the Derby, showing up at Churchill Downs undefeated off a 10 1/2 -length romp in the Arkansas Derby.

“Heartbreaking, that’s what it was,” said Street Sense’s trainer, Carl Nafzger, who said he thought he had his horse better for this one than even before his Derby win.

“We only needed a nose.”

Nafzger said his suggestion would be to skip the Belmont Stakes and get his horse fresh for some of the big races later in the year.

It’s been a decade since the same three horses that finished on top in the Derby, did the same in the Preakness, even if the order was jumbled up. This time, Hard Spun, the Kentucky Derby runner-up, finished third, four lengths back.

In this one, jockey Mario Pino said he started his big move earlier than he had wanted, since he saw eventual fourth-place finisher C P West coming up behind him, and cavalry charge starting behind that.

Hard Spun’s trainer, Larry Jones, who thinks his horse will likely move on to the Belmont, said of the move behind by C P West jockey Edgar Prado: “We pretty well had to go. We’d have loved to put that move off for another eighth of a mile, but he did well. I’m pleased.”

“I didn’t want to wait and let them get on top of me,” Pino said. “It cold have really worked out for us right there. They were really coming hard, and there was nothing I could have done about it. I thought Street Sense was going to win when he went by.”

So did Calvin Borel, Street Sense’s jockey.

“I thought it was all over when I got by Hard Spun,” Borel said. “I thought he was just going to gallop. But things happen.”