A real mudder: Seize the Grey wins 149th Preakness Stakes; Mystik Dan takes second

BALTIMORE — There will not be a Triple Crown winner in horse racing this year.

>> Read more trending news

Seize the Grey ran to victory at the 149th Preakness Stakes on Saturday, winning the Run for the Black-Eyed Susans at a muddy Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. That gave trainer D. Wayne Lukas his 15th Triple Crown win and seventh in the Preakness.

Lukas, 88, becomes the oldest trainer to win a Triple Crown race. Jaime Torres was the winning jockey.

Seize the Grey’s wire-to-wire victory in the second jewel of horse racing’s Triple Crown was run over the 1 3/16-mile track at Pimlico, which has hosted the Preakness since 1873. The gray colt went off at 9-1 odds at post time.

Lukas previously won the Preakness in 1980, 1985, 1994, 1995, 1999 and 2013.

“I thought his action down the backside was beautiful, and I knew that he was handling the track,” Lukas said after the race. “I said, ‘Watch out, he’s not going to quit.’”

Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan, the 2-1 favorite at post time, finished second, 2 1/4 lengths behind the winner. Catching Freedom finished third, followed by Tuscan Gold.

“Wayne’s an amazing guy,” Mystik Dan trainer Kenny McPeek said. “He’s a guy I’ve always idolized.”

Conditions at the track were wet and sloppy, as intermittent showers rolled through the Baltimore area on Saturday, USA Today reported. Temperatures had been expected to be in the 60s and possibly dropping into the upper 50s at post time.

The final Triple Crown race, the 156th Belmont Stakes, will be held June 8 at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, New York, the Times-Union of Albany reported. The race is normally held at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York, but the track is being renovated. The race will be held in Saratoga Springs this year and in 2025.

“Very excited,” Torres told NBC Sports after the win. “Very excited and very thankful to all the people that have been beside me helping me.

“My family, I want to thank them. Because we came -- like a lot of people, a lot of jockeys -- we came from the bottom. ... To afford flights and all those things, to support me, I know is hard. They still do it because they love me. And I appreciate that a lot,” he said.

Mystik Dan, ridden by Brian Hernandez Jr. and trained by Kenny McPeek, was trying to become the first horse since Justify in 2018 -- and the 37th horse overall -- to win the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. Justify went on to win the Belmont and complete the Triple Crown.

Two weeks ago, Mystik Dan held off late charges by both Sierra Leone and Forever Young in the Kentucky Derby to win the race by a nose in the first three-horse photo finish since 1947, CBS Sports reported.

The Preakness Stakes track record of 1:53.00 was set by Secretariat in 1973.

The closest any horse has come to topping that mark came in 2020, when Swiss Skydiver finished in 1:53.28. That race was held in October due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

National Treasure won last year’s Preakness in 1:55.12.

Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert has won the Preakness a record eight times. Lukas is now tied for second place with R.W. Walden.

Baffert has 17 Triple Crown race victories. He won the Preakness in 1997, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2010, 2015, 2018 and 2023.

Catching Freedom, trained by Brad Cox, finished fourth in the Kentucky Derby. Jockey Flavien Prat won the 2021 Preakness Stakes on Rombauer.

© 2024 Cox Media Group