BALTIMORE — Bob Baffert fought back tears and his voice cracked as he tried to juggle the emotions of one of his horses winning the Preakness Stakes and another being euthanized at the same track.
“This business is the twists and turns, the ups and downs,” he said. “To win this — to lose the horse today is very painful. … It’s a very emotional day.”
National Treasure won the Preakness on Saturday in Baffert’s return to the Triple Crown trail after a suspension, but it came hours after another 3-year-old colt, Havnameltdown, was put down with a left leg injury. race on the undercard. The victory ended Mage’s bid for the Triple Crown in a controversial scene similar to two weeks earlier when he won the Kentucky Derby after seven horses died in 10 days at Churchill. Downs.
National Treasure, the 5-2 second choice, held off a hard-charging Blazing Sevens to win the 1 3/16-mile, $1.65 million race by a head in 1:55.12.
“He fought the whole way,” said jockey John Velazquez about National Treasure. “He put up a good fight. … That’s what champions do.”
National Treasure paid $7.80 to win, $4 to place and $2.60 to show. Blazing Sevens paid $5 to place and $2.80 to show.
Mage finished third after being the 7-5 favorite, paying $2.40 to show. Despite the smallest Preakness field since 1986, the leading horses were slower than in the Derby, and that didn’t benefit Mage’s running style of finishing late and passing tired rivals.
“Slowly, very slowly,” Mage’s trainer, Gustavo Delgado Sr., said.
Mage’s loss means there hasn’t been a Triple Crown winner for the fifth consecutive year, since Baffert’s Justify in 2018.
Baffert became the face of the sport after his American Pharoah ended a 37-year Triple Crown drought in 2015. Since Medina Spirit was DQed from the Derby, however, Baffert became a polarizing figure. In addition to his suspension at Churchill Downs, he was forced to miss the Preakness and Belmont last year due to a Kentucky-related suspension that was honored by Maryland and New York.
On Saturday, he returned to a major race — and, thanks to National Treasure, back to the winner’s circle.
“You couldn’t have done it without the group of owners that I had that stuck with me through all the negativity, all the bad things that happened to me the last few years,” Baffert said. “Days like this, it’s not really vindication. It’s just, I feel like there’s a chance we can enjoy it.”
Even that was not easy, given the sad scene earlier, when Havnameltdown stumbled and unseated jockey Luis Saez.
While Saez was being cared for, black barriers were propped up in the dirt driveway while the horse was euthanized. All the while, 2Pac’s “California Love” blared from the infield speakers in what was intended as an annual day-long celebration of thoroughbred racing.
“It felt like a knife in my heart when I saw it,” Velazquez said. “It’s devastating when you see it. When a horse goes through something like this – and the jockey on top of it – you feel it.”
Saez went to the hospital but was conscious, and his agent said the X-rays were negative.
While expressing concern for Saez, Baffert said he is still sad about Havnameltdown.
“We’re still upset about that horse, and we will be for a while,” he said.
While horse racing deaths in the U.S. are at their lowest level since they began tracking in 2009, adding another one to the track hosting a Triple Crown race will only intensify internal and external scrutiny of the industry. . Those inside say they accept the realities of on-track horse deaths while also acknowledging that more work needs to be done to prevent as many as possible.
In that vein, new national drug and doping rules are set to come into force on Monday. The federally mandated Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, which already regulates racetrack safety and other measures, will administer drug-testing requirements for horses that should standardize the sport nationwide in first time.