Tank’s Prospect in Record Preakness Win : Colt Sweeps Past Eternal Prince in the Stretch, Then Edges Chief’s Crown by a Head at the Wire

About the only award racing doesn’t have is Veterinarian of the Year. The Triple Crown races would be good for this year’s leading candidates.

First, Spend a Buck won the Kentucky Derby after arthroscopic surgery, then, on Saturday, Tank’s Prospect, a 3-year-old colt who couldn’t get his breath six weeks ago, blew down favored Chief’s Crown in the stretch at Pimlico to win the $545,700 Preakness Stakes by a long head before 81,245 fans.

So let’s hear it for Wayne McIlwraith, the Colorado State veterinarian who removed the chip from Spend a Buck’s ailing knee, and Greg Ferraro, the Los Angeles practitioner who headed a team that freed Tank’s Prospect’s entrapped epiglottis with a 15-minute procedure shortly after he finished ninth in the Santa Anita Derby April 6.

Pat Day doesn’t wield a knife, he travels with a riding crop, and Saturday the 31-year-old jockey whipped Tank’s Prospect at least 18 times through the stretch to coax him home in 1:53 2/5, a time that broke by one-fifth of a second the record Gate Dancer had set in the 1 3/16-mile Preakness last year.

The win was the second in the Preakness for trainer Wayne Lukas, who copied a training pattern with Tank’s Prospect that had worked when Codex won here in 1980. Neither horse worked over the Pimlico track before the race, Codex coming in three days in advance and Tank’s Prospect not arriving here until Friday afternoon after spending two post-Derby weeks at Belmont Park.

“I did the same thing winning the Campbell Stakes here with Imp Society earlier in the meet,” Lukas said. “You have to have the right kind of horse to be able to do this. We have a division of horses at Belmont, anyway, so it was convenient to ship him there after the Kentucky Derby and give him a good track to work over. He was familiar with Hollywood Park and Oaklawn Park (where he won the Arkansas Derby April 20), and Pimlico is a lot like those tracks, which have a little bounce and a lot of cushion.”

Tank’s Prospect, who had earned $932,445 before the Preakness, picked up an additional $423,200 for Gene Klein, who bought the big bay colt as a yearling for $625,000 and then named him after Tank Younger, the former fullback who still works in the front office of the San Diego Chargers, the team Klein owned until he traded footballs for horses a couple of years ago.

Tank’s Prospect, whose seventh-place finish in the Kentucky Derby Lukas blamed on the rock-hard track at Churchill Downs, paid $11.40, $3.40 and $3 as the third betting choice. Chief’s Prospect, who finished 2 1/2 lengths ahead of Eternal Prince, the second choice, paid $2.60 and $2.40, and Eternal Prince returned $3.20. A Tank’s Prospect-Chief’s Crown exacta paid $24.40.

The owners of Spend a Buck, disdaining a chance to win the Triple Crown, skipped the Preakness in favor of the Jersey Derby on May 27 at Garden State Park, where a win would be worth $2.6 million.

None of the other eight Preakness starters appeared to have the class of the first three finishers, and they ran the race accordingly. After Eternal Prince, it was three lengths back to I Am the Game and the rest of the order consisted of Cutlass Reality, Tajawa, Southern Sultan, Sparrowvon, Skip Trial, Sport Jet and Hajji’s Treasure, who broke both front sesamoids entering the backstretch and was rushed after the race to a Philadelphia-area hospital, where a veterinarian team was trying to save his life.

Lukas and Klein had a big day Saturday, their champion filly Life’s Magic winning the Shuvee Handicap at Belmont Park at about the same time Tank’s Prospect was breaking the Preakness record. This Preakness win was cleaner than Lukas’ first, which came only after Codex survived a foul claim and a drawn-out appeal from Genuine Risk’s owners, who claimed their Kentucky Derby-winning filly had been impeded in the stretch.

It was the first win in a Triple Crown race for Day, the leading race-winning rider in the country for the last three years but a jockey who had been unsuccessful with lesser stock in six previous Triple Crown races. He was riding Tank’s Prospect for the first time, Lukas making the switch from Gary Stevens, who had ridden the son of Mr. Prospector to his win in the Arkansas Derby.

“A week ago,” Lukas said, “I told Gary that it was no reflection on his ride in the Kentucky Derby, but Day was available and he was riding at Garden State Park Saturday night, which made it even more convenient.”

Coming out of the gate Saturday, Day might have wished he was Gary Stevens.

Tank’s Prospect was bumped by I Am the Game, causing Day to lose his left stirrup for about six strides before he got his foot back in the iron.

“That might have cost me a little as far as position goes,” Day said. “The horse didn’t start off galloping the way I wanted him to.”

As expected, Eternal Prince set the early pace, with blistering fractions of :45 1/5 and 1:09 2/5. Chief’s Crown was a close second, with Day saving ground along the rail in the middle of the field.

On the far turn, Day swung Tank’s Prospect around two horses, then came back inside for the drive. Jockey Chris McCarron said Eternal Prince didn’t tire, but Chief’s Crown passed him at the top of the stretch.

With a furlong to go, Day had Tank’s Prospect on the outside of Chief’s Crown. “At the three-eighths pole, my horse was gaining momentum with every stride,” the jockey said. “I knew I had Eternal Prince beat. I knew we’d win if we didn’t run out of time, and we got up just in time.”

Specifically, in the next-to-last stride. It was so close at the wire that unofficially Chief’s Crown also ran faster than Gate Dancer’s record. But that was scant solace for Roger Laurin, the trainer who has had the favorite in both the Derby and the Preakness and finished third and second. In the Derby, Chief’s Crown ran into Spend a Buck, whose time was the third-fastest in race history.

An hour after the Preakness, a discouraged Laurin sat on a fence across from Chief’s Crown’s barn.

“They keep telling me this is a bad crop of 3-year-olds,” Laurin said. “If they are, they sure keep running the races awfully fast.”