BALTIMORE — D. Wayne Lukas worked his way to Seize the Grey after his horse won the Preakness Stakes and kept getting interrupted by well-wishers offering congratulations.
“I think they’re trying to get rid of me,” Lukas said. “They probably want me to retire. I don’t think that’ll happen.”
Not when the 88-year-old trainer, inducted into the U.S. Racing Hall of Fame a quarter-century ago, keeps winning big-time races.
Seize the Grey ended Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan’s bid for thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown by going wire to wire to win the Preakness on Saturday at Pimlico Race Course, giving Lukas his seventh victory in the race. He’s now one short of the record held by good friend Bob Baffert, a fellow Hall of Fame trainer.
“I’m only one behind him — I warned him already,” Lukas said. “It never gets old at this level, and I love the competition. I love to get in here with the rest of them.”
The strapping grey colt took advantage of the muddy track just as Lukas hoped he would, pulling off the upset in a second consecutive impressive start two weeks after romping in a race on the Kentucky Derby undercard at Louisville’s Churchill Downs.
Going off at 9-1 as one of the longest shots on the board at the Preakness, Seize the Grey moved to the lead immediately out of the starting gate and never looked back, covering the 1 3/16-mile layout in 1 minute, 56.82 seconds.
“I thought his action down the back side was beautiful, and I knew that he was handling the track,” Lukas said. “I said, ‘Watch out, he’s not going to quit.'”
Mystik Dan finished second in the field of eight horses running in the $2 million race for 3-year-olds. After falling short in the second leg of the Triple Crown following his win by a nose in a three-horse photo finish at the Kentucky Derby, it would be a surprise if he runs in the Belmont Stakes on June 8 at Saratoga Race Course in upstate New York.
“My colt’s a fantastic colt, and proud of him,” trainer Kenny McPeek said. “It just wasn’t his day, but he’ll live to race again.”
Seize the Grey was a surprise Preakness winner facing tougher competition than in the Pat Day Mile on May 4. Given the Lukas connection, however, it should never be a surprise when one of his horses is covered in a blanket of Black-Eyed Susan flowers.
No one in the race’s 149-year history has saddled more horses in the Preakness than Lukas, with 48 since debuting in 1980 and winning that one with Codex. He had two in this time, with Just Steel finishing fifth, but Seize the Grey — owned by 2,570 people involved in the MyRacehorse group — delivered the victory.
“I just couldn’t be happier for every single one of them,” MyRacehorse founder and CEO Michael Behrens said. “We had some big expectations, but this exceeds all those expectations.”
AP photo by Julia Nikhinson / D. Wayne Lukas, left, shakes hands with with fellow trainer Bob Baffert after the Preakness Stakes on Saturday at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. Seize the Grey was the winning horse, giving Lukas his seventh Preakness victory. Baffert, whose entry Imagination finished seventh in the eight-horse field, holds the record with eight Preakness wins.Seize the Grey paid $21.60 to win, $8.40 to place and $4.40 to show. Mystik Dan paid $4.20 to place and $2.80 to show, while third-place Catching Freedom paid $3.20 to show.
Tuscan Gold was fourth.
Baffert, who was looking for a record-extending ninth Preakness victory, was supposed to have two horses in the field, but morning line favorite Muth was scratched at midweek because of a fever. Imagination, Baffert’s remaining entry, finished seventh, after sixth-place Uncle Heavy and ahead of Mugatu.
“He is still learning,” Baffert said. “I think we are learning his style. I saw a lot today that I can change going forward. I don’t think he wants to run like that. We didn’t really have a plan. We thought it would be Wayne or us.”
Muth’s absence made Mystik Dan the 2-1 favorite, but he and jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. could not replicate their perfect Kentucky Derby trip to win that race’s first three-way photo finish since 1947. Instead, Jaime Torres rode Seize the Grey to a win in his first Triple Crown race of any kind, just two years after starting to ride.
“I have no words,” said Torres, a native of Puerto Rico who did not begin racing until seeing it on TV in late 2019. “I’m very excited — very excited and very thankful to all the people that have been behind me, helping me.”
Hernandez felt good before Seize the Grey found a second wind.
“I’m like, ‘OK, here we go. We’re just going to cruise to him and we’ll be able to run him down,'” Hernandez said. “But Lukas’ horse sprinted on again when he turned for home. Our horse was running; we just couldn’t run him down today.”
This was the last Preakness held at Pimlico Race Course as it stands before demolition begins on the historic but deteriorating venue, which will still hold the 150th running of the event next year amid an overhaul.
That process is already well underway at Belmont Park on Long Island, which is why the final leg of the Triple Crown is happening at Saratoga for the first time and is being shortened to 1 1/4 miles — instead of its usual 1 1/2 — because of the shape of the course.
Kentucky Derby second-place finisher Sierra Leone, a half-step from winning in Louisville, is expected to headline that field in three weeks, though Lukas said he’d wait to see about Seize the Grey also running.