Preakness 2025: Journalism gets squeezed, rallies for win

Baltimore

Breaking tackles. Getting checked into the boards. Trading paint. Squeeze play. Pick the sports analogy, and it still would be a feeble expression of what Journalism did Saturday at Pimlico.

Trying to split horses and rally inside the quarter pole, the Kentucky Derby runner-up absorbed a hip check from Goal Oriented to his right, staggered forward as he was pushed into Clever Again and still squeezed through an impossibly narrow gap. Once he got clear air, Journalism still had to make up five lengths of ground down the middle of the track to collar long shot Gosger. He did it with only a stride to spare to win by a half-length in Preakness 2025.

Click here for Pimlico entries and results.

Seriously, how did he do that only two weeks after going through a 19-horse battle in the slop to finish second in the Kentucky Derby?

“It took guts for (trainer) Michael McCarthy to make this call,” lead owner Aron Wellman of Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners said. “It took guts for Umberto Rispoli to power his way through a seemingly impossible hole, getting side-swiped, threading the needle and powering on through. And it took guts from an incredible horse to somehow will his way to victory.”

A stewards inquiry into all the banging around was pro forma. They left the results as they were. If it were in their power, their only logical move would have been to add lengths to Journalism’s margin of victory as the even-money favorite, if only to cover some spread.

Getting out of trouble is completely in character for Journalism. Two starts back in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby, he got shuffled behind Westwood and collided with Barnes going into the second turn. He emerged in the stretch in second place and rallied past Baeza in the last sixteenth of a mile.

That was nothing compared with Saturday’s finish that has been compared with the Preakness 20 years ago, when Afleet Alex clipped heels with Scrappy T, dropped to his knees and still ran on to victory.

“For sure he got the worst of it,” McCarthy said. “Hats off to Umberto and Journalism for persevering. I think today you saw what it takes to be a champion. Today was his day. He had been telling us all along he was sort of ready for an effort like that.”

The drama actually began before the race. The son of 2007 Preakness winner Curlin got agitated and showed it in the post parade.

“He was on his toes a little bit,” said McCarthy, who also won the 2021 Preakness with Rombauer. “Something had gotten him a little bit irritated. We were having a hard time getting the halter off of him.”

Journalism calmed down, started alertly enough and settled along the rail in sixth place heading into the first turn. But McCarthy saw something was not quite right.

“The first time by the stands he flopped over to his left lead,” he said. “He was in a little bit tight. Up the backside I thought he was traveling OK coming to the half-mile pole.”

Journalism still was in sixth through the first three-quarters of a mile as Clever Again set the early fractions of 23.19, 46.66 and 1:10.23 on the sunbaked main track.

Still having to pass five horses, Rispoli decided to take the rail route.

“He wasn’t traveling like he did in the Derby,” said Rispoli, the first native of Italy to ride the winner of a U.S. Triple Crown race. “At that point you think two things. You have no horse, so he’s just too relaxed. I think the second was the option, because as soon as I give a smack on the shoulder, he says, ‘OK, I know what I’ve got to do.’

“At that point I was trying to go outside and follow (fading) River Thames, but it had been suggested from some top world-class riders, some Hall of Fame riders in the United States, you win this race saving ground. I would say thank you to (Hall of Famer) Jerry Bailey for the big tips.”

It was when Rispoli took Journalism to the inside that all hell broke loose. Stakes debutant Goal Oriented, ridden by Flavien Prat, veered inward and slammed into Journalism.

“He ran well, but he is still green,” trainer Bob Baffert said. “He was not used to being behind horses, and he got intimidated.”

Before Journalism regained his composure, he leaned into Clever Again, who already had his spot along the rail and had nowhere for José Ortiz to maneuver him. After the dust settled from that fender bender, Clever Again packed it in and finished last in the field of nine.

“It was rough on him,” trainer Steve Asmussen said.

Through the mile in 1:35.89, 15-1 long shot Gosger still had the lead carrying jockey Luis Sáez. It looked like everything going on behind him might have been a moot point had the finish line come sooner.

“I thought we were home when he opened up,” Gosger’s trainer Brendan Walsh said. “Luis said at the end he just got a little bit lackadaisical, and he was out on his own maybe a little too long.”

It was only a question of whether there was enough ground left for Journalism to make up the difference. There was, but only just.

“When I looked up, Luis opened up four lengths ahead of me,” Rispoli said. “The first time I used the crop on (Journalism), he switched his lead, and boom, he took off.”

“The other horse came by and flew by,” Walsh said.

Gosger finished second, and Sandman closed from last to come home third another 2 1/4 lengths back. Goal Oriented, Heart of Honor, River Thames, Pay Billy, American Promise and Clever Again completed the finish in that order.

With a winning time of 1:55.47, Journalism paid $4.00, $2.80 and $2.40; Gosger $9.00 and $5.40; and Sandman $3.60.

It was an emotional win for all the connections, especially McCarthy. His home was spared in the Eaton fire in Los Angeles County in January, but the flames came within 600 feet, and there was enough smoke damage to force him and his family to move in with relatives.

“This is for Altadena,” he said on NBC Sports as he fought back tears.

The Preakness was run without Sovereignty, who won two weeks ago in the Kentucky Derby. His breeder-owner Godolphin and trainer Bill Mott made him the equivalent of a healthy scratch when they decided only three days after the Derby not to run at Pimlico but instead point for the Belmont Stakes on June 7 at Saratoga.

It sounds like Journalism will be there, too.

“We’ll evaluate him,” said Wellman, rolling back from a firmer sounding commitment a few minutes earlier. “Michael’s going to stay here for a couple days, assess his energy level, his appetite. We’d love to go.”

With a noticeably smaller crowd in the stands, the 150th running of the Preakness was the last at old Pimlico. The racecourse is ticketed for demolition this summer with a new grandstand and stable area to be built on it. The $400 million project being financed by the Maryland state government is supposed to be done in time for the 2027 Preakness. Next year’s middle jewel of the Triple Crown will be run at Laurel Park, a 30-mile drive south of Pimlico.

“My start in racing was as a fan,” McCarthy said. “I think back to Sunday Silence, Easy Goer, all the great horses, all the great racers who have come through this place. ... I will miss seeing that weather vane up there for sure. Sad to see it go, but we’ll look forward to next year.”