No pledge yet from Mystik Dan's owner to run Kentucky Derby winner in Preakness

LOUISVILLE — Tradition tugs on trainer Kenny McPeek to take his Kentucky Derby winner, Mystik Dan, to Baltimore on May 18 and try to win the Preakness.

In fact, around 7:40 a.m. Sunday, McPeek received a phone call from officials at Pimlico Race Course, extending the invitation to race in the second leg of the Triple Crown and bunk Mystik Dan in the historic stall reserved for the Derby winner at the track’s stakes barn.

Secretariat stayed in that stall. So did Seattle Slew. So did American Pharaoh. Only Kentucky Derby winners need apply.

McPeek put the call on speaker phone and accepted the invitation with one request:

“Can I bring my dog?” McPeek asked.

Pimlico filed no objection. Sonny, McPeek’s beloved 5-year-old Labrador retriever is in line to make the trip.

But … McPeek said he would not decide if Mystik Dan will race at Pimlico in 13 days until he gathers more information about the health and vitality of his horse.

Running a 3-year-old colt at 1 3/16th-mile two weeks after racing a mile-and-a-quarter in a 20-horse field is a serious ask. McPeek has done it with other horses. But McPeek has given Mystik Dan more than four weeks between his four races in 2024.

McPeek wants to be certain his horse is primed for the challenge after Mystik Dan was barely a nose better than Sierra Leone and Forever Young in Kentucky Derby 150 at Churchill Downs late Saturday afternoon.

Mystik Dan did not eat until late Saturday night — and when the colt was given his food, he finished about a quarter his normal amount.

“He left about three-quarters of his feed,” McPeek said. “Most trainers don’t talk about this. Look, cards on table, face up. We couldn’t hardly get everybody out of the barn until midnight.

“So he didn’t really get a great night’s rest. So we’ll watch him today and tomorrow and if he’s back in the tub and doing everything he needs, he’s just a real special horse …

“We’re going to let the horse tell us. If I don’t think he’s right and ready, then we’ll just wait for the Belmont. And I think that distance (1½ miles) is a good race. I actually like it better.”

McPeek said the colt will be walked at his barn for the next three days and then return to the track for a gallop Wednesday morning. If he looks the part of a happy horse and resumes eating the way he has, then racing in the second leg of the Triple Crown will be entertained — with jockey Brian Hernandez ready to ride again.

“We went into yesterday thinking we had a really good horse,” Hernandez said.

“I told myself that I was going to roll the dice and see if I could get to the fence [race along the inside rail]. That was the game plan all along …

“… we kind of busted through there [near the quarter pole], right when we straightened out for home. Mystik Dan switched leads and kind of spurted off.

“Now it was like, ‘Let’s just hurry up and get to the wire as fast as we can.’ He was just rolling.

“When we got to the eighth pole, it was like ‘We’re about to win the Kentucky Derby. I can’t believe this.’

“Then when we got to the wire it was like, ‘Oh, no, maybe we got beat.’ “

He did not get beat. Mystik Dan made history, making McPeek the first trainer to win the Kentucky Oaks and Derby on the same weekend in 72 years. Hernandez was the first jockey to win both races since his friend, Calvin Borel, won the Oaks on Rachel Alexandra and the Derby with Mine That Bird in 2009.

One horse who will skip the Preakness is Derby runner-up Sierra Leone. Trainer Chad Brown said that colt’s next race will likely be June 8 in the Belmont Stakes. This will be an unusual Belmont. The track in New York City is undergoing a substantial renovation so the next two Belmonts will move to Saratoga (N.Y.) Race Course, north of Albany.

“There were three horses there that all could have won,” Brown said. “There wasn’t a lot to think about.”

Brown congratulated McPeek and Mystik Dan on their Derby victory, calling them deserving winners. He also said that he believed that Sierra Leone ran the best race.

‘I’m very proud of the horse, I’m just disappointed with the result,” Brown said. “Just the last little jump there … in my mind, he ran the best race. It’s no disrespect to the winner. It’s a hard race to win. Everything has to go right.”

Both things can be true. A confirmed stretch runner, Sierra Leone ran wide in both turns, encountering occasional trouble.

Still jockey Tyler Gaffalione had the colt positioned in the middle of the lane for a thunderous finishing run. Gaffalione and Sierra Leone and Forever Young with jockey Ryusei Sakai engaged each other over the final 3/16ths of a mile.

There certainly appeared to be bumping — between the horses and the jockeys, with Gaffalione, extending a whip in his left hand.

No objections were filed. No change was made to the final order of the race. But those two horses and jockeys competed as fiercely as any Derby horses have competed in years.

“When horses are fatigued they have a tendency to lean in and it’s going to look exaggerated when they’re more tired,” Brown said.

“He had so much to do that our feeling was that when he got to the eighth pole, he was tired and leaning in a little bit.

“What Tyler was really attempting to do was make room for his left stick and keep him straight. He was just looking for a pathway to use his left stick.

“The bumping and the tight duel between the two horses, it disarmed him with the stick. All he had was a rein to pull on, and it really hurt his momentum.”

It was Mystik Dan by a nose over Sierra Leone by a nose over Forever Young, the most specular Derby finish in nearly three decades.

“I don’t think it’s going to sink in for a long time,” Hernandez said. “I’m standing here with all these cameras in front of me wondering, ‘Wow, what just happened.’”

The Block News Alliance consists of The Blade, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Louisville television station WDRB. Rick Bozich is a reporter at WDRB.