Rich Strike was not one of the top five stories in the run-up to the Kentucky Derby; he was probably not one of the top 50.
No one even knew he would be in the race until the morning before, and a quick glance at his record would have told us he probably did not belong.
All of that changed in a matter of seconds as we watched him burst from off-screen and out of our realm of awareness to pass dueling favorites Epicenter and Zandon in the stretch run. Not only did Rich Strike become the second longest shot ever to win the Derby, he introduced us to a second-generation trainer named Eric Reed, who had nearly lost his stable to a fire six years earlier.
Then, just as quickly as he became the star of the Triple Crown stage, he exited it, removed from Preakness consideration by Reed and owner Rick Dawson, who said they would rather let Rich Strike rest up for the Belmont Stakes. The Derby winner’s withdrawal immediately reframed the Preakness, which will be defined by his absence.
But the race will go on, so as we prepare for post time on Saturday evening, here are five stories to watch:
How much will Rich Strike be missed?
Rich Strike probably would not have gone off as the Preakness favorite, and the history of long shot Derby winners tells us he probably would not have won at Pimlico Race Course. But that’s not the point.
His shocking upset invigorated racing fans, who had watched a medication violation overturn the previous year’s Derby result and spur an ongoing legal saga around the sport’s top star, suspended trainer Bob Baffert. Rich Strike, a champion spawned from the unlikeliest circumstances, seemed to encapsulate out purest notions of what the sport can be. Could he and the newly prominent connections around him do it again? This was going to be our driving question going into the Preakness.
Instead, we’re left with a big party, a field of good 3-year-olds — a couple of them potentially great — and no narrative to connect the Triple Crown races. The last time the Preakness went off without the Derby champion in 2019, ratings on NBC dropped 29%. We’re so used to the traditional Derby-to-Preakness formula, we don’t quite know how to tell the story without it.
None of this is Reed’s or Dawson’s fault; they seem intent on doing what’s best for their horse rather than sticking blindly to the familiar path. But the Preakness will miss Rich Strike, no matter how good he is or is not.
Is Derby runner-up Epicenter actually the best horse in this class?
He looked the part in winning the Louisiana Derby and the Risen Star Stakes. He looked the part in the morning at Churchill Downs, where several rival trainers, including Chad Brown, labeled him the horse to beat. He looked it at the top of the stretch in the Derby.
For months, he did nothing wrong, nothing to tell Steve Asmussen he was anything less than a worthy Derby favorite. He was faster at an early age than Asmussen’s previous Horse of the Year winners, Curlin and Gun Runner. The winningest trainer in North American history was certain he had his first Derby victory until the last few seconds of the race, when Rich Strike flashed into his world.
Epicenter came out of the Derby well, and he’ll have an immediate chance to reassert his superiority, much as Curlin did in winning the 2007 Preakness on his way to the Hall of Fame. He will probably be favored at Pimlico, and he won’t have to worry about Rich Strike catching him this time, though he will have fourth-place Derby finisher Simplification to contend with. But as Marty McGee of the Daily Racing Form pointed out, only three of the last 43 Derby runners-up to enter the Preakness have won it. That history won’t matter if Epicenter is clearly the top talent in the field, but it’s something to keep in mind.
Can Secret Oath become the latest filly to outrun the males?
It was a shame the stands sat empty in 2020, when the indomitable filly Swiss Skydiver would not let Derby champion Authentic pass her in the Preakness. What a thrilling duel it was, despite the strange October run date and the peak-pandemic setting.
We don’t often see female horses win the Preakness; six have done it and only two of those, Swiss Skydiver and Rachel Alexandra, since 1924. But it’s always intriguing when a filly jumps from the Kentucky Oaks, the top female-only race on Derby weekend, to the Preakness. Lukas, a six-time Preakness winner, will take his shot with Secret Oath, this year’s Oaks champion.
It’s fair to wonder if Secret Oath has the speed to be a genuine threat. When she ran against males in the Arkansas Derby, she went off as the favorite but finished third behind Cyberknife and Barber Road, neither of whom went on to make a huge impression in the Kentucky Derby. Her results, even her Oaks win, do not suggest a monster talent on par with Rachel Alexandra. On the other hand, her resume (including speed figures) was more impressive than Rich Strike’s heading into Derby week, so ignore her at your peril.
Can Chad Brown and Seth Klarman repeat a winning formula with Early Voting?
Brown, a four-time Eclipse Award winner as the nation’s top trainer, and Klarman, an analytically-inclined owner who grew up a few blocks from Pimlico, read the landscape perfectly in 2017. They did not point Cloud Computing to the Derby, opting to keep him fresh for the Preakness instead. He took advantage of several tired Derby horses to deliver the only major victory of his career.
Brown and Klarman might have higher long-term hopes for Early Voting coming off his impressive second-place finish in the Wood Memorial. But they did not feel he was sufficiently battle-tested to thrive in the 20-horse Derby field, and they’re hoping, just as they did with Cloud Computing, that a six-week rest will translate to Preakness glory.
Early Voting’s rider, Jose Ortiz, tried to control the Wood Memorial from the lead, only to be passed late by Mo Donegal. If he attempts the same strategy in the Preakness, he will likely have to contend with a stalking Epicenter. Will the extra four weeks of rest help Early Voting hold on in such a scenario? Brown and Klarman are betting on it.
Will Rich Strike’s absence prompt a substantive discussion about changing the Triple Crown calendar?
We’re not used to a healthy Derby winner skipping the Preakness, but as several smart racing people said after the news about Rich Strike broke, this was inevitable. We simply do not live in a world in which trainers are comfortable bringing their star 3-year-olds back on two weeks’ rest. We’re not going back to the 1970s, when top 3-year-olds routinely came into the Triple Crown series with foundations of 10 or more races and it was no big deal to run three times in five weeks. Caution is now the rule, and plenty of people in the sport think the Triple Crown calendar is a relic from the past.
Others say tradition matters and the Triple Crown should be hard. But if we see more and more Derby-winning trainers consider bypassing the Preakness, the whole series will suffer. This is not a new conversation; past leaders of the Maryland Jockey Club have tried to stir it up. But with each Triple Crown track operating independently, there’s no unified authority to step in and demand reform.
Those who argue for a new calendar say the Preakness could be run on Memorial Day weekend or the first weekend in June, with the Belmont Stakes going to July 4 weekend. We’ll hear that concept tossed around over the next week. But will any of the people who actually make decisions be involved in the conversation?
147th Preakness Stakes
Pimlico Race Course
Saturday
TV: Chs. 11, 4 (coverage begins at 2 p.m.)
