Seize the Grey earns wire-to-wire Preakness Stakes win on muddy track
BALTIMORE – One truism in horse racing is never count out Hall of Fame trainer Wayne Lukas. At 88, he walks with a cane but still climbs about his pony and supervises morning workouts.
On Saturday, in the 149th running of the Preakness Stakes, Lukas won this race for the seventh time with Seize the Grey in a wire-to-wire effort. It ended Mystik Dan’s effort to compete for the Triple Crown. The Kentucky Derby champion ran a good race, finishing second, 2 1/4 lengths behind the winner.
Lukas won his first Preakness in 1980, 44 years ago, with Codex.
Asked how this one felt, he deadpanned, “Like the first one.”
The horse is owned by MyRacehorse, a company that buys horses and sells microshares to those who want to be a horse owner. It’s believed there are about 2,570 people who have part of the horse.
“Can you imagine the number of people who are going to relish in this?” Lukas said. “I don’t even know how many people own this horse. It’s a lot of people, I know.”
As Lukas made his way to the winner’s circle, he experienced a lot of fellow trainers who have been influenced by Lukas.
“That makes it special,” Lukas said of the reception. “I think they are trying to get rid of me. I think they want me to retire. I don’t think that will happen.”
It was also the first Triple Crown race and win for jockey Jaime Torres as he guided the 3-year-old over the muddy track.
Seize the Grey ran two weeks ago, but not in the Kentucky Derby but the Pat Day Mile at Churchill Downs. The thinking was he didn’t have enough distance for the 1 3/16-mile race. But he went to the front with Imagination along side him. Seize the Grey moved to the front on the first turn and never surrendered the lead. Mystik Dan made a nice run at him but came up short.
Seize the Grey paid $21.60 to win. He was followed by Mystik Dan, Catching Freedom, Tuscan Gold, Just Steel, Uncle Heavy, Imagination and Mugutu.
The race lost a lot of its intrigue on Wednesday when Muth, the morning-line favorite, scratched after spiking a fever. The Bob Baffert trainee had beaten Mystik Dan and Just Steel in the Arkansas Derby. Everyone was looking forward to a rematch of a horse that wasn’t allowed to enter the Kentucky Derby because of his trainer and the winner of the Kentucky Derby.
It left Baffert with just Imagination in the race, who had no excuses with a seventh-place finish.
This year is supposed to be the next-to-last Preakness at the current decaying facility. The Stronach Group, which bought majority interest in Pimlico in 2002, gave the track to the state of Maryland with the actual transfer taking place on July 1. The state has approved a $400 million rebuilding project.
Later this summer, part of the grandstand, which had been condemned and ruled uninhabitable, will be torn down along with the barns on the backstretch. Next year’s 150th Preakness will be held at the facility, although no one is quite sure how the fans will be configured. Then after the race, the rest of the demolition and rebuilding will start.
The 2026 Preakness will be held at nearby Laurel Park, which was also owned by TSG. Laurel will go away when Pimlico is rebuilt and racing returns to Baltimore full time. An optimistic timeline has the new Pimlico to be operational in 2027.
The small crowd on Saturday was another blow to TSG, whose racing division is called 1/ST Racing. In three weeks, the one-time giant in horse racing will close Golden Gate Fields in Northern California.
To say the track is going out with a whimper would be a compliment. This week it canceled its Friday and Sunday cards because of a lack of entries.
Santa Anita, once a crown jewel in racing, has struggled to attract horses and bettors. Four- and five-horse fields are common and with low purses there doesn’t seem to be an imminent turnaround unless they can get supplemental gambling income. Nothing appears to be in the works on that meaning the clock is also ticking on Santa Anita.
Regardless of if it was the weather or the decline of horse racing, the spectacle and excitement that once swirled around the Preakness seemed to be missing. Many in attendance were just there to see a concert after the races by Jack Harlow.
But those who paid attention had a glimpse of one of horse racing’s all-time greats. And that’s worth remembering.