Wear and Tear Is Catching Up to Trainer Matz

BALTIMORE — If Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro is as worn out as trainer Michael Matz seemed at the post-position draw Wednesday, then maybe those other horses have a chance in the Preakness after all.

Matz, the usually meticulous trainer who carefully spaced Barbaro’s races to have his horse fresh for a Triple Crown run, conferred at length with owners Gretchen and Roy Jackson as time ran down, then stepped to the microphone to select a post for Saturday’s Preakness Stakes and said, “Four.”

Post 4 was already taken.

“We’d like to take the sixth position,” Matz said, after a delay that was close to the official 60-second limit.

Matz shrugged it off later, as did the Jacksons.

“I don’t know why he said four,” Roy Jackson said. “We had decided on six.”

Matz said he simply misspoke because he had been thinking about taking post 4 if it was available.

“I think six is fine. If he’s good enough, he’ll win from six,” Matz said.

Undefeated Barbaro has inspired a rush of Triple Crown talk since he won the Derby May 6 by 6 1/2 lengths, the largest margin in 60 years. He was installed after the Preakness draw as the even-money favorite by Frank Carulli, the linemaker at Pimlico Race Course.

Brother Derek, at 3-1, and Sweetnorthernsaint, at 4-1 -- both had difficult trips in the Derby -- are the top challengers in a field of nine for the 1 3/16 -mile race that includes six starters who didn’t run at Churchill Downs.

The nearly two weeks since Barbaro won the Derby have been “hectic,” Matz said.

For him. Not so much for the horse.

Barbaro has been home in his barn at peaceful Fair Hills Training Center, some 60 miles from Pimlico, the site of the 131st running of the Preakness.

Barbaro won’t even arrive at Pimlico until the day before the race. Sweetnorthernsaint, stabled at nearby Laurel Park and trained by Baltimore native Michael Trombetta, won’t van over until the morning of the race.

Brother Derek, who will start from post 5, just inside Barbaro, remained at Churchill Downs after the Derby instead of returning to trainer Dan Hendricks’ barn at Santa Anita and arrived Wednesday at Pimlico.

“He traveled great,” said Hendricks, who also arrived Wednesday from California.

Hendricks and rider Alex Solis are eager for a better trip after Brother Derek lost a shoe in the Derby and was forced wide after starting from post 18 in a 20-horse field.

There should be no such trouble in the nine-horse Preakness, but this time, everybody is chasing Barbaro.

“He deserves to be the 4-5 favorite or whatever they make him,” Hendricks said.

“We all want to run the race and not have any excuses. I hope I haven’t come over as whining about the Derby. I’ve just been explaining what I thought happened.”

Among the more intriguing new starters are 8-1 Bernardini, winner of the Withers Stakes, and 12-1 Like Now, a front-runner who won the Gotham Stakes and will be on the rail.

But the glaring statistic is that only one horse who didn’t run in the Derby has won the Preakness in the last 22 years, Red Bullet in 2000.

The horses that were second and third in this year’s Derby, Bluegrass Cat and Steppenwolfer, already have set their sights on the Belmont.

Barbaro will try to become the seventh horse in 10 years to win the Derby and Preakness and enter the Belmont with a chance to win the Triple Crown, a feat that hasn’t been accomplished since Affirmed did it in 1978.

But after going eight weeks and five weeks between races before the Derby, Barbaro now must try to come back in two.

“He’s a very, very nice horse,” said Kiaran McLaughlin, the trainer of Like Now. “It’s just two weeks’ rest, which isn’t what the trainer wants or the horse wants. He’s probably the best horse, but is he superior enough to overcome that?”

Matz, who took an unorthodox plan to preparing his horse -- no other had won the Derby after a five-week layoff since Needles in 1956 -- said Saturday’s race will tell the tale.

“We’ll see if our plan works or not,” he said.

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The Preakness Stakes

The field for the 131st running of the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore on Saturday. The Preakness is the 12th race of the card, with an approximate post time of 3:10 p.m. PDT. Coverage begins at 2 p.m., Channel 4.

*--* PP Horse Jockey Trainer M/L 1. Like Now Garrett Gomez Kiaran McLaughlin 12-1 2. Platinum Couple Jose Espinoza Joseph Lostritto 50-1 3. Hemingway’s Key Jeremy Rose Nick Zito 30-1 4. Greeley’s Legacy Richard Migliore George Weaver 20-1 5. Brother Derek Alex Solis Dan Hendricks 3-1 6. Barbaro Edgar Prado Michael Matz 1-1 7. Sweetnorthernsaint Kent Desormeaux Michael Trombetta 4-1 8. Bernardini Javier Castellano Tom Albertrani 8-1 9. Diabolical Ramon Dominguez Steve Klesaris 30-1

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