It’s a Gusher for Pleasant Tap--a Lightning Pimlico Workout

Pleasant Tap, who ran third to Unbridled and Summer Squall in the Kentucky Derby and is not known for fast workouts, blazed through five furlongs Tuesday in 57 3/5 seconds.

Trainer Chris Speckert, stunned by the time, said, “The track is lightning, but so is this horse.”

Only two other horses are believed to have worked faster at Pimlico over five furlongs.

One was Fight Over, who went that distance in 56 4/5 in 1984 before setting the pace in the Preakness, then finishing third to Gate Dancer. The other was the great colt, Secretariat, who worked the same distance in 57 2/5 on a Sunday morning before the 1973 Preakness with an estimated 1,000 cheering him on. Secretariat went on to sweep the Triple Crown.

Pleasant Tap’s fractional times for each eighth of a mile were equally exciting. They were were 11 1/5, 22 3/5, 33 3/5 and 45 3/5. He galloped out to six furlongs in 1.12.

“I had expected him to work in about 59 (seconds),” the trainer said. “If they like the track, they go fast. If they don’t like it, they don’t go fast. I don’t mind what they go in as long as they do it well and gallop out and they don’t come back stressed and strained, and then you don’t mind.”

Kent Desormeaux will ride Pleasant Tap, who is listed as a fifth choice at 8-1 in the Preakness.

Speckert said he believes Pleasant Tap was not at his best for the Derby.

“He needed the Derby, and this should set him up perfectly,” he said. He’s a much lighter horse now than he was. He was a big, fat horse going into the Derby and he still ran a great race. He had to get leg weary at the end because that was a lot of weight to carry.”

Asked if Pleasant Tap might race closer to the pace than he did in the Derby, Speckert acknowledged that the workout might get the colt a little closer. “But I can’t get in the gate and push him out,” the trainer said. “His daddy (1981 Preakness winner Pleasant Colony) ran like this. You can’t change him. He does run fast at the end, but you can’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to do.”