Washington (United States) (AFP) – Napoleon Solo surged around the final turn to seize a redemptive triumph in the 151st Preakness Stakes at Laurel Park in Maryland on Saturday. The victory in the second jewel in US flat racing’s Triple Crown was a vindication for trainer Chad Summers after Napoleon Solo’s stellar 2-year-old campaign—including a win in the Grade 1 Champagne Stakes—was followed by a disappointing 2026. Napoleon Solo was the only Grade 1 winner in the field but had finished fifth in his two most recent starts.
“We’ve had everything go wrong in his 3-year-old year, and we just kind of stayed the course and stayed the course,” Summers told broadcaster NBC. “We had a lot of critics out there that just told us to just shut up. We just kept with it and it worked out today.” Napoleon Solo rewarded Summers’s faith with a strong late run. Tucked in behind pace-setter Taj Mahal, he swept to the front around the final turn under Mexican-born jockey Paco Lopez. Both Summers and Lopez claimed their first Preakness wins.
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Iron Honor, trained by two-time Preakness winner Chad Brown and ridden by US-based French jockey Flavien Prat, was second, and Chip Honcho, trained by Steve Asmussen, was third under jockey Jose Ortiz—who rode Golden Tempo to victory in the Kentucky Derby. Two weeks after Golden Tempo made Cherie DeVaux the first woman trainer to saddle a Kentucky Derby winner, Brittany Russell had hoped to become the first female trainer to win the Preakness with Taj Mahal. The Laurel Park-based colt was sent off as a 9-2 favorite and, with Russell’s husband Sheldon Russell aboard, broke from the first post and immediately went to the front. But they couldn’t hang on, fading to 10th in the 14-horse field.
The decision of Golden Tempo’s connections to skip the Preakness robbed the race of some excitement, ensuring there would be no chance this year for a 14th horse to claim the coveted treble of Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes. It was also unfamiliar territory for the Preakness, whose traditional home at Pimlico in Baltimore is undergoing renovations. That forced the switch to Laurel Park, where the crowd was limited to about 4,000 rather than the 60,000-plus in recent years at Pimlico. The Triple Crown will conclude on June 6 with the Belmont Stakes, run at Saratoga for a third straight year as renovations are completed at Belmont Park.
© 2024 AFP
