Preakness 2026: Why Asmussen & Chip Honcho skipped Derby

Laurel, Md.

Before or instead of Preakness 2026 on Saturday evening, Steve Asmussen could have run Chip Honcho in the Kentucky Derby. For four days last month, he had the last spot in the starting gate after Iron Honor’s dropout.

That was on a Tuesday, 11 days before the race. By Friday that week, the day before entries were taken, the Hall of Fame trainer decided to take a pass. For the first time in 11 years, Asmussen would miss a chance to win the one big race that has eluded him and his 28 starters since 2001.

Preakness 2026: Ed DeRosa’s updated fair odds.

For Chip Honcho, a horse who can look very good or very bad, his biggest test would come under calmer circumstances.

“I think the biggest factor now is his lack of consistency in how he’s handled in races and the common sense of 150,000 setting you off vs. 3,600 not,” Asmussen said.

He was referring to the cauldron of spectators May 2 at Churchill Downs vs. the downsized crowd, actually capped at 4,800, that will be allowed into Laurel Park on Saturday.

Chip Honcho arrived at the temporary site of the Preakness after a 600-mile trailer ride from Kentucky early this week. Since Tuesday morning, the Connect colt has had easy daily gallops with Brooke Stillman riding. Assistant trainer Darren Fleming has been watching and reporting back to Asmussen, who will be at Laurel this weekend to watch Chip Honcho break from post 6 in the field of 14.

If there is one thing that has stuck in Asmussen’s mind through all the decision making, it has been Chip Honcho’s fadeout going the Preakness distance of 1 3/16 miles March 21 in the Grade 2 Louisiana Derby. That distant fifth at Fair Grounds was a big talking point when he and majority owner Leland Ackerley zeroed in on Maryland.

“Obviously a disappointing Louisiana Derby for him,” Asmussen told Horse Racing Nation last week at Churchill Downs. “Expected better that day. He’s trained solidly here since.”

The morning of the Kentucky Derby, Chip Honcho worked a bullet 1:00.0 over five furlongs. That was followed last weekend by a 50.2-second, half-mile maintenance breeze.

“With the time off (from races) and then the decision to not run in the Derby, that gave us the time to step it up a notch with him from a solid blow for what is still the second leg of the Triple Crown,” Asmussen said.

Asmussen has more than just a healthy respect for the Preakness. He has won it with a boy, Curlin in 2007, and a girl, Rachel Alexandra in 2009. Those triumphs at old Pimlico were important ingredients in what turned out to be horse-of-the-year campaigns and Hall of Fame résumés, including the trainer’s.

“The Curlin Preakness was probably the most significant victory in my career,” Asmussen said. “Because of the timing, our first classic, who Curlin ended up being, just to look back on that. It’s something that could never be duplicated because of how special it is.”

Asmussen beamed when he pointed out that Curlin is Kentucky Derby winner Golden Tempo’s sire, second-place Renegade’s damsire and third-place Ocelli’s grandsire. “The Curlin trifecta,” he said.

Ocelli, who was 70-1 to win the Derby, is back in the Preakness on Saturday. The Equibase GPS chart said he led the run for the roses with 110 yards to go. Under that circumstance, if the Derby had been the Preakness distance, Ocelli would have won.

“I think that obviously it is a unique circumstance in the fact that the most established 3-year-olds to this point are skipping (the Preakness),” Asmussen said. “But you know you have a horse that, if the Derby was the distance of the Preakness, he’d have been the winner.

Asmussen never misses a detail from big races. It is part of why he remains perplexed about Chip Honcho’s failure last out in the Louisiana Derby. His confidence going into the race was emboldened by the 7 the colt got in the Ragozin Sheets for finishing a close second to Paladin on Feb. 14 in the 1 1/8-mile Risen Star (G2), also at Fair Grounds.

“Not a lot of them are capable of doing that,” Asmussen said.

He meant 3-year-olds. Eleven of the 14 in the Preakness show a penchant for racing forward up the backstretch. Chip Honcho has a Quirin Speed Points designation of E 7, meaning he has been on or near the lead early in his races.

Derby-winning jockey José Ortiz got the Preakness assignment from Asmussen after Golden Tempo’s connections maintained the awkward new tradition of skipping the Preakness. Ortiz led at every call in November when he rode Chip Honcho to a maiden-breaking win in the Churchill Downs mud. With Paco López aboard in December, the colt stalked and scored in the Gun Runner at Fair Grounds for his most recent win.

“I know there is a lot of speed on paper, and it may be a negative for him to have speed,” Asmussen said about the Preakness. “We can’t be somebody we’re not. We know who we are, and that’s who we plan on being in this race.”

If there is an unknown for everyone with this Preakness, it is how the race will be run and won in what is intended to be this one time only at Laurel. Pimlico has a one-mile circumference, and Laurel is nine furlongs. The 1 3/16 miles of the Preakness mean shorter runs to the first turn and through the homestretch at Laurel with bigger turns in between.

With 56,484 starts in his Equibase file, Asmussen knows just about every racetrack in America. He said that is not true about Laurel, where he has had only one starter since 2023. But he has done some homework. Longtime Laurel watchers say the rail is not the place to be turning for home.

“Watching the races, the racetrack yields considerably slower times than Pimlico does,” he said. “The local rider colony rides the races there and searches for a different part of the racetrack than when you watch Pimlico racing. For somebody who’s run at a lot of different venues, the people who do it most often usually (at one track) know it the best, and that is what we’re going off of.”

Asmussen hopes the Risen Star version of Chip Honcho, the one who ran to a career-high 92 Beyer Speed Figure, according to Daily Racing Form, recaptures that form Saturday. Then he might not have to worry about the idiosyncrasies of Laurel Park.

“I think that there’s nuances to everything,” he said, “but it is all trumped by their natural ability.”