A specific memory nudged Kenny McPeek toward caution.
The year was 1995, and McPeek was a fresh-faced trainer bursting with optimistic vim after a horse named Tejano Run finished runner-up in the Kentucky Derby.
“I was 32. I got swept up in, ‘Oh, you’ve got to take him to the Preakness, you can win the Preakness,’” the voluble Kentuckian recalled Thursday morning at Pimlico Race Course, standing outside the stall occupied by his Derby champion Mystik Dan. “And in all honesty, I wish I had a do-over with that horse. I should’ve been more thoughtful, should’ve been more detail-oriented.”
Tejano Run finished ninth in a field of 11 at Pimlico and did not run again until the following March. McPeek came to believe his overeager choice cost an excellent horse the better part of a year.
Twenty-nine years later, as a wiser and (by his account) portlier McPeek soaked in the Derby triumph that had eluded him for decades, he was not about to let the pressure of the Triple Crown series warp his reasoning. No matter how many reporters asked, he would not commit Mystik Dan to the Preakness until the horse showed he was good and ready.
“It was, OK, we don’t need to make a decision right now; we need to make sure he’s OK,” McPeek said. “If I had done that with Tejano Run, I probably would’ve saved him — he had a rough year after that.”
Make no mistake; McPeek did not bring Mystik Dan to Baltimore to lose. If anything, he believes the clever bay colt might handle the 1 3/16-mile Preakness better than he did the 1 1/4-mile Derby, where he barely held on in a three-way photo finish. He believes Mystik Dan’s relatively light schedule — one race in 11 weeks — going into the Derby set him up to attack the Triple Crown series with a full gas tank.
He just needed the horse to confirm it through a quiet post-Derby week of morning gallops and a barrage of medical tests checking his hydration, white blood cell count and inflammation levels.
“Everything was perfect,” McPeek said.
Exactly a week after Mystik Dan took the Derby as an 18-1 shot, his trainer said the words the racing world had hoped to hear: On to the Preakness.
2024 Preakness week | PHOTOS
Mystik Dan was set to become the first Derby winner since I’ll Have Another in 2012 to enter the Preakness and not go off as the favorite.
But Bob Baffert-trained Muth exited the field Wednesday because of a 103-fever, clearing the stage for Mystik Dan, an 8-5 favorite in the revised morning line, to pursue a potential Triple Crown. He’ll still have to beat the likes of fourth-place Derby finisher Catching Freedom, rapidly improving Tuscan Gold and Baffert’s other entrant, Imagination. But there’s no question he’ll go in as the star of Saturday’s show.
“He’s very good,” said six-time Preakness winner D. Wayne Lukas, who will saddle Just Steel and Seize the Grey against Mystik Dan. “I don’t want to be training him for Kenny McPeek, but he looks damn good. I don’t think that it’ll be easy to outrun him, especially if the weather changes.”
Lukas was alluding to rain in the forecast for Saturday. Mystik Dan’s best pre-Derby win came over Arkansas mud in the Feb. 3 Southwest Stakes.
McPeek said he won’t be calling for the heavens to open. Rain or shine, he looks forward to Saturday’s hullabaloo. He won the Preakness in 2020 with a terrific filly named Swiss Skydiver. She battled Baffert’s Derby champion, Authentic, down the stretch of an exciting race and got the better of him.
But what a weird year to win a classic. The Preakness was delayed to October because of the coronavirus pandemic. No one, other than McPeek and a small party of connections, was at Pimlico to cheer Swiss Skydiver to the wire. It was the last Triple Crown race of that year and like so many events at the time, seemed to happen in a world apart.
“We had fun,” McPeek said, grinning. “There was no problem with any parking, no problem with getting tickets, no problem getting any hotels. But this is what you want. You want this atmosphere. You want people here and you want ’em connected to it all. I’m glad we’re back to normal.”
Preakness 2024: What to know, including post time, odds, weather and more
As much as this is a week for McPeek to enjoy the spoils of Derby success, it’s also a chance for the racing world to appreciate his chosen rider, Brian Hernandez Jr., the unassuming second-generation pro who just won his first Triple Crown race at age 38.
Hernandez has ranked in the top 20 in North American earnings four of the past five years, but this is the first time he’s being talked about with the likes of Irad Ortiz Jr., Flavien Prat and John Velazquez — the biggest names in his trade.
He credited his agent, Frank Bernis, and his working relationship with McPeek for helping him climb out of a “making ends meet” existence over the last dozen years. “It’s been no drama,” he said. “There’s not many instructions given. It’s more kind of he lets me go out there and ride my race.”
McPeek would rather have a no-frills professional who’s there for him every day than beg a more decorated rider to get on his horse for a big race.
“The older I get, I don’t get enamored with big-name jockeys,” he said. “There are plenty of very talented trainers and jockeys that just don’t have great horses. My job is to get horses in here. His is to get ’em around there, and he rarely makes a mistake for me. I can give you on one hand the times I’ve come back and said to him, ‘We should’ve won that race. What were you thinking?”’
McPeek has enough faith in Hernandez that he’s not interested in talking strategy for the Preakness, which his horse will likely be favored to win now that Muth is out of the way.
“I will let him do what he thinks is right,” he said. “You get top-level riders, you leave them alone. You don’t tell Picasso how to paint or Rembrandt how to paint.”
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If that sounds like hyperbole, know that McPeek is far from the only person suggesting that Hernandez’s ride in the Derby — he seized the day with efficiency, calmly guiding Mystik Dan to the rail after the early pace wiped out a slew of contenders — rose to the level of racing art.
“A Hall of Fame ride,” said Robby Albarado, who steered Swiss Skydiver to Preakness glory four years ago.
Hernandez might need to come up with another one Saturday, when he’ll face well-rested challengers such as Tuscan Gold and Imagination, not to mention a likely late charge from Catching Freedom, who’s training vigorously.
“Brian probably has more pressure than I do,” McPeek said. “He’s out there actively, physically in the middle of all that. But we’re not going to put any added pressure on it. We’re going to enjoy it.”
149th Preakness Stakes
Pimlico Race Course
Saturday, approx. 6:50 p.m.
TV: NBC
Preakness 2024 field
Post, Horse, Odds
1. Mugatu 20-1
2. Uncle Heavy 20-1
3. Catching Freedom 7-2
4. Muth (Scratched)
5. Mystik Dan 8-5
6. Seize the Grey 12-1
7. Just Steel 12-1
8. Tuscan Gold 9-2
9. Imagination 3-1
