Ashley Durr, Anthony Tate and Front Page Equestrian’s Ocelli, third in the Kentucky Derby (G1) as a maiden and the biggest longshot in the field of 18 at odds of 70-1, is now under consideration for the 151st Preakness Stakes (G1) May 16 at Laurel Park.
Trainer Whit Beckman on Tuesday upgraded Ocelli’s likelihood for the Middle Jewel of the Triple Crown from “extremely unlikely” on Sunday to “maybe.”
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“If you look at it from a pace perspective, it could go as fast as the Derby,” Beckman said, referencing a scenario that would help a closer such as Ocelli. “He’s doing great. That’s the only reason I’m saying ‘yeah, maybe.’ The horse is doing fantastic. The horse is made of iron. Generally, I run a horse, they may not come to the front of their stall for a week. He was right there.”
Asked if there was any downside to running Ocelli in the Preakness, he said, “The only downside is if the horse is not ready to do it.” He noted that the Preakness winner usually is a horse that ran two weeks earlier in the Derby.
The upside, Beckman said, “is the chance to win a Triple Crown race.”
Ocelli came into the Derby winless in six starts, with a second and three thirds, capped by his third place in the Wood Memorial (G2) April 4 at Aqueduct. But Beckman did not consider him a “maiden.”
“Nobody said it to my face, but I’m sure people were thinking, ‘How stupid is this guy putting in a maiden?’” Beckman said. “But they don’t get to see what I see every day. They don’t get to see a horse that wants more and more and more, that trains like an absolute terror. I think the thing we always miss is the development of these 3-year-olds. You don’t know who is going to be the best 3-year-old on the first Saturday in May, in comparison to horses rounding into form in March and April.”
In the Derby, Ocelli stuck his head in front at the sixteenth pole before grudgingly giving way to Golden Tempo and Renegade.
“When he was coming around the turn and just picking up horses real easily … when he passed Danon Bourbon [who took the lead on the far turn], I was watching in the paddock and you couldn’t see the outside horses,” Beckman said. “That was about the longest two seconds of my life, where my breath just stopped and I thought, ‘He can get there!’ Then reality caught up to us. It wasn’t even a whole length, I don’t think.”
Bodexpress in 2019 was the last maiden to enter the Preakness, though he dumped Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez leaving the starting gate and ran the entire race riderless before being caught by an outrider. The most recent maiden to win the Preakness was Refund in 1888, one of six maiden Preakness winners prior to 1900.
Golden Tempo ‘Doing Great,’ Preakness Decision Upcoming
Kentucky Derby (G1) winner Golden Tempo had his third walk day Tuesday and will return to the track for light training Wednesday at Keeneland. Trainer Cherie DeVaux, speaking at a media availability arranged by Keeneland’s communications department, reiterated that the Preakness decision will be made toward the end of the week.
“He’s doing great,” said DeVaux, whose main base is at Keeneland’s year-round Rice Road stabling area. “He’ll return to the track tomorrow for a light jog. He’ll do that for two days, and then he’ll resume galloping.”
As far as running in the 1 3/16-mile Preakness at Laurel Park, she said, “We’re going to see how much energy he has when he’s on the track, see how he’s moving, see his attitude and things of that nature…. I appreciate there’s history with the Triple Crown. I appreciate everyone is excited about it. However, the horse comes first. So, any of that pressure is outside information from our decision-making.”
