Lookin at Lucky might get lucky with a jockey switch in the Preakness, but Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver is still the one to beat with Calvin Borel, winning rider in last year’s Preakness aboard the filly Rachel Alexandra.
“We’ve been really, really pleased with the way he’s trained since the Derby,” said Todd Pletcher, who also noted that 5-2 morning line slight favorite Super Saver has maintained a healthy appetite, as well as his weight, since the Kentucky Derby.
Pletcher said that he normally wouldn’t run a horse two weeks after its last start, but “if the Kentucky Derby winner bounces back, it’s worth a shot.”
“He’s really come up to it so well that we would have had to take a hard look, even had he not won the Derby,” he added. “It concerns me a little that if they go slow in this race, it’s going to compromise his style a bit. All of his better races have been when he’s (been) taken back, and that’s what we’re going for this time.”
Rider Calvin Borel plans on using different tactics with Super Saver in the Preakness.
“Tomorrow we’re coming in with a fresh horse and I love his chances,” Borel said. “It’s going to be a totally opposite race, I think. It won’t have the speed like in the Derby. If somebody wants to go, I think I can let him go and lay right off of him. If they don’t, we’ll take it to them.
“I think this colt is starting to peak at the right time and it’s a big, big plus. He worked so good Monday morning, you wouldn’t imagine.”
Lookin at Lucky, trained by Bob Baffert and with Martin Garcia aboard for the first time, is the 3-1 second-favorite morning line pick; Paddy O’Prado is 9-2 for Dale Romans under Kent Desormeaux.
Luckin at Lucky, the Kentucky Derby favorite, drew the unlucky #1 hole in the Derby, but has post position #7 today, inside Super Saver in the #8 hole. The Smart Strike son, who spent his entire 2-year-old career racing on the West Coast, has six wins in nine starts, including three G1 wins, and was runner-up by a head in a dramatic finish in the Breeders Cup Juvenile.
Bob Baffert has won the Kentucky Derby three times (1997 – Silver Charm; 1998 – Real Quiet; 2002 – War Emblem) and was the first in history to train winners of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness in back-to-back years.
Paddy O’Prado, third-placed in the Kentucky Derby, has one win from seven starts – the G3 Palm Beach Stakes on the turf; he also headed the field in the G1 Blue Grass at Keeneland, but was beaten by 41/4 lengths to finish second.