Monarchos Draws a Lucky No. 7

These things are known about the Preakness, the second leg of racing’s Triple Crown:

* Gate-to-wire winners are almost nonexistent.

* Last year’s winner to the contrary, horses that haven’t run two weeks earlier in the Kentucky Derby can usually save themselves the trouble and stay home.

* Horses that draw an outside post position, beyond the No. 7 hole, are also up against it.

* And favorites are sitting ducks.

So where does that leave Monarchos, the winner of the Kentucky Derby, as he heads into the 126th running of the Preakness on Saturday at Pimlico?

Well, he certainly won’t try to win this one on the front end. Monarchos came from 16 lengths behind to win the 1 1/4-mile Derby by 4 3/4 lengths, and while his trainer, John Ward, and his jockey, Jorge Chavez, know they need to be closer in the shorter Preakness if they’re to sustain Triple Crown ambitions, the colt’s running style remains that of a strong-finishing closer.

As for post position, Monarchos drew No. 7 Wednesday when 11 horses were entered for the $1-million, 1 3/16-mile race. Ward is happy. His wife and No. 1 assistant, Donna Ward, is happy that her husband is happy.

But trainer Bob Baffert, despite the obligatory ad-libs at the draw, may not be completely happy. Baffert’s Congaree, who finished third in the Derby, drew the No. 5 post, a good spot, but his other horse, Point Given, the Derby favorite that ran fifth, came up with No. 11. Real Quiet won the 1998 Preakness for Baffert, after breaking from No. 10 in a 10-horse field, but before that the last far-outside entrant to win was Aloma’s Ruler, who was No. 7 in a seven-horse field in 1982.

“Real Quiet did it [from No. 10],” Baffert said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky with Point Given too.”

Monarchos is the 2-1 morning-line favorite. However, favorites have won the Preakness only five times in the last 20 years. The last five favorites--Fusaichi Pegasus, Menifee, Victory Gallop, Captain Bodgit and Cavonnier--were all beaten.

Red Bullet, the horse that beat the Derby winner, Fusaichi Pegasus, last year at Pimlico, was a contradiction, a Preakness winner that hadn’t run in the Derby.

“Usually, the horses that run in the Derby are the horses to follow here,” said trainer Nick Zito, who’s running A P Valentine on Saturday. “They’re usually the best horses. Red Bullet skipped the Derby, but we still knew he was a good horse.”

Red Bullet, who finished second to Fusaichi Pegasus in the Wood Memorial last year, was the first horse since Deputed Testamony, in 1983, to win the Preakness without running in the Derby. Six of Saturday’s 11 starters are horses that bypassed the Derby, and most are considered throwouts. Richly Blended, who was third in the Wood Memorial before winning the Withers at Aqueduct on Derby day, is the best regarded of the outsiders, but he’s still no better than 10-1 on Pimlico’s morning line. In a race unlike the Derby, in that it’s mostly devoid of early speed, Richly Blended will no doubt set the pace, something that hasn’t worked for a Preakness horse since Aloma’s Ruler, ridden by teenager Jack Kaenel, went all the way to hold off Linkage and Bill Shoemaker.

Under a selection process introduced here in 1998, which starts with a blind draw to determine the order in which owners and trainers choose their posts, Monarchos was the second pick. After Richly Blended’s trainer, Ben Perkins Jr., picked No. 6 for his speedster, Ward chose the 7 hole for Monarchos.

“I talked on the phone to my jock [Chavez], who had just won the last race at Belmont Park,” Ward said. “And he thought the 7 was a good number. We’ve got a good post, and the speed [Richly Blended] is inside us. Things are falling into place like they did at the Derby.”

Zito has won the Derby twice, with Strike The Gold in 1991 and Go For Gin in 1994, but the best either colt could do in the Preakness was Go For Gin’s second to Tabasco Cat. A P Valentine better fits the profile of Louis Quatorze, who was 8-1 in 1996 when he gave Zito his only Preakness victory.

Like Louis Quatorze before the Preakness, A P Valentine hasn’t won a stake as a 3-year-old. Louis Quatorze, ridden by the late Chris Antley, finished 16th in the Derby; A P Valentine, stopped twice in heavy traffic, was seventh at Churchill Downs. Zito switched from Antley to Day for the Preakness; he is replacing Nakatani with Espinoza on Saturday. In 1996, Day was open because he’d been taken off Prince Of Thieves, his Derby mount, by trainer Wayne Lukas; this year, Espinoza got the call from Zito after Baffert had replaced him with Jerry Bailey on Congaree.

Zito is at that point in A P Valentine’s career where he needs to latch on to any kind of confidence-builder. As a 2-year-old, A P Valentine was considered one of the best around, and after winning the Champagne was sent off the favorite in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. But he ran 14th, came out of the race with sore shins and has won only one of four starts this year.

“Both horses had dismal Derbys,” Zito said. “But then Louis Quatorze worked good here and ran good. A P Valentine worked good [five furlongs in 1:00 3/5] the other day, and I hope he runs good too.”

Espinoza, whose first Triple Crown race was his third-place run with Congaree in the Derby, caught Zito’s attention when he won the Breeders’ Cup Distaff with Spain at Churchill Downs in November.

“I think he’s on his way to being one of the top riders,” Zito said. “One of these days, he could be another Pat Day. Look what he’s done already. He’s one of the leading riders in California, and out there he’s in a colony that includes [Gary] Stevens, Nakatani, [Eddie] Delahoussaye, [Chris] McCarron and [Laffit] Pincay, plus a few others.”

Zito might have gone to Chris McCarron instead of Espinoza for A P Valentine, but the trainer said that McCarron was tied up Saturday at Hollywood Park. McCarron won with Go For Gin in the Kentucky Derby.

Zito said he soured on Nakatani after the Derby, sensing that in the jockey’s second ride on A P Valentine he had lost confidence in the colt.

“After the race, Corey said that he had been in a little traffic, that it wasn’t that bad,” Zito said. “But you take a look at the race and you can see that he had a real bad trip. It would have been nice to follow the winner, who got through, but that horse Keats got in our way.”

At the top of the stretch, A P Valentine was 14th, about 15 lengths from the lead. In the last 200 yards, the colt passed six horses, but was still far back of Monarchos at the finish.

“He lost all chance, but he still continued to run,” Zito said. “Horses can change, like Louis Quatorze did between the Derby and Preakness. That’s what I’m counting on this time.”

The forecast could bring showers today, and thunderstorms are also likely Friday and Saturday, with Saturday’s temperature expected to be near 80 degrees. . . . Red Bullet won on a track labeled good last year, the first off-track for the race in eight years. . . . Before Aloma’s Ruler, the last gate-to-wire winner in the Preakness was Bally Ache in 1960. . . . The last favorite to win was Timber Country in 1995.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Preakness Field

The field, in post-position order, for Saturday’s 126th Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. Post time: 3 p.m. PDT. TV: Channel 4.

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PP Horse Jockey Trainer Odds 1. Marciano Mark Johnston Tim Ritchey 30-1 2. Mr. John Corey Nakatani Elliott Walden 20-1 3. Griffinite Shaun Bridgmohan Jennifer Leigh-Pedersen 50-1 4. A P Valentine Victor Espinoza Nick Zito 10-1 5. Congaree Jerry Bailey Bob Baffert 5-2 6. Richly Blended Rick Wilson Ben Perkins Jr. 10-1 7. Monarchos Jorge Chavez John Ward Jr. 2-1 8. Percy Hope Jon Court Tony Reinstedler 50-1 9. Bay Eagle Ramon Dominguez Graham Motion 30-1 10. Dollar Bill Pat Day Dallas Stewart 12-1 11. Point Given Gary Stevens Bob Baffert 3-1

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Owners (by post position): 1. Win More Stable. 2. Thomas Van Meter II. 3. Ernie Paragallo. 4. Ol Memorial Stable & Michael Tabor. 5. Stonerside Stable. 6. Raymond Dweck. 7. John Oxley. 8. Waterfall Stable. 9. Lazy Lane Farm. 10. Gary & Mary West. 11. The Thoroughbred Corporation

Weight: 126 pounds each. Distance: 1 3/16 miles.

Purse: $1 million. First place: $650,000; second place: $200,000; third place: $100,000; fourth place: $50,000.