The two-week turnaround between the Kentucky Derby and Preakness is a relic of horse racing’s past, a time when Thoroughbreds were sturdier and the big money for owners was made on the racetrack rather than the breeding shed.
Back in the 1940s and 50s, it wasn’t unusual for horses to run every two weeks. Now, top-class colts that run once a month are a rare breed.
The general trend toward more space between races and the desire to have a fresh horse for big summer and fall races like the Travers and Breeders’ Cup Classic explains why so few horses from the Derby continue through the entire Triple Crown anymore. There is no other context in the entire sport where a trainer would enter their 3-year-old in a 1 and 3/16th-mile race just 14 days after running them 1 1/4 miles.
Typically, horses respond to this grueling task one of two ways. Either they exit the rigorous Derby as fit and ready to run as they’ve ever been in their life, or they struggle to bounce back and run lethargically in the Preakness.
The physical effort it took for Mystik Dan to win the Kentucky Derby was undoubtedly at the front of trainer Ken McPeek’s mind during the week he spent waffling about whether to run in the Preakness.
As McPeek noted moments after the Derby win, Mystik Dan did not respond well as a 2-year-old when he was asked to run two weeks after breaking his maiden. Also, the Derby was a hard race, with Mystik Dan slowing down near the finish line and hanging on by a desperate nose. Had he not won the Derby, it’s unlikely Mystik Dan’s connections would have even considered contesting the Preakness.
At the same time, all the physical signs from Mystik Dan point to him being one of those horses that comes out of the Derby thriving and ready to put on an even better performance at Pimlico. And with Arkansas Derby winner Muth scratching out of the race Wednesday due to a fever, Mystik Dan is by far the most accomplished horse in a relatively weak eight-horse field. He’ll go into the gate Saturday as a deserving favorite.
But unlike the Derby, a race where the 20-horse field puts a premium on who gets the cleanest trip around the track, the Preakness can usually be handicapped in a more traditional manner. And one of the oldest maxims in handicapping should apply for this Preakness in particular: Pace makes the race.
Among the eight horses in the field, only one has shown an affinity for early speed: Bob Baffert trainee Imagination.
Purchased as a yearling for $1.05 million, Imagination didn’t move into the top tier of Baffert’s 3-year-old armada until winning the San Felipe on March 3. After backing it up with a good second in the Santa Anita Derby, Imagination would have been an intriguing Derby longshot if not for the suspension Churchill Downs extended a third year for Baffert-trained horses.
So instead he was pointed to this race, which – to Baffert’s delight – came up shockingly devoid of frontrunners.
Breaking from the outside post position, Imagination will almost certainly be sent to the lead under Frankie Dettori, the 53-year-old riding legend who left Europe last year to finish his career on the American circuit.
And from there, jockeys of the other contenders – including Brian Hernandez Jr. on Mystik Dan – will have to make a decision. Do they push their horse early to press Imagination and risk using up too much energy early in the race? Or do they back off and let Dettori control the pace, risking a situation where Imagination gets away with an easy first half-mile and never looks back?
Assuming Dettori can avoid a suicidal pace, chances are pretty good that Imagination will be in front as the horses make their way around the far turn. You’d expect Mystik Dan to lay three or four lengths off the pace and make the same kind of move he did in the Derby, confronting Imagination with a quarter-mile to go while the closers start to gear up.
All things being equal in this scenario, Mystik Dan is the better horse and should win the race. But all things aren’t equal: Imagination comes into the Preakness off a six-week rest, while the stretch run will test whether Mystik Dan has enough in the tank to win another hard race off the two-week turnaround.
A couple of things point to Imagination being able to hold on and win. First and foremost, Baffert is the master of the Preakness, winning this race a record eight times. Also, the Preakness has recently been a coming-out party for 3-year-olds with considerable upside who skipped the Derby, including the race’s last three winners: National Treasure (2023), Early Voting (2022) and Rombauer (2021).
Though there’s not going to be much betting value in either option, Imagination – 6-1 on the morning line but sure to be bet down a bit from there – should at least offer a little bit of a juicer price on either straight win bets or exotics.
Combined with the natural skepticism of whether Mystik Dan can put forth another top-quality effort, Imagination is the pick for a wire-to-wire win, giving Dettori his first victory in one of the American classics after 21 combined wins in the Triple Crown races of England, Ireland and France.
Mystik Dan should run well, but this time it won’t be quite good enough to get to the wire first. The question is whether he can hold on for second place against Tuscan Gold, the lightly raced but talented Chad Brown trainee, or Catching Freedom, who closed well in the Derby to finish fourth.
Though American Pharoah in 2015 and Justify in 2018 proved it’s still possible to win the Triple Crown, the task gets harder and harder with each generation. Not only does the Derby-Preakness turnaround cut against all modern training methods and theories, the presence of fresh horses like Imagination and Tuscan Gold often makes it an unfair fight.
If Mystik Dan can defy those trends, it will arguably be an even more impressive feat than winning the Kentucky Derby. Given the horse’s history on short rest and McPeek’s initial skittishness about going to the Preakness at all, it’s fair to be skeptical that he can pull it off.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mystik Dan’s biggest hurdle at Preakness: racing fresh horses
