Preakness is not certain for Ky. Derby winner Mystik Dan

Louisville, Ky.

Standing in front of a phalanx of reporters and photographers outside his Churchill Downs barns, trainer Kenny McPeek took a phone call from the Maryland Jockey Club inviting him and Mystik Dan to the Preakness Stakes.

At the end of the conversation that took about a minute-and-a-half, there was no R.S.V.P.

“We’re not committed to the Preakness,” McPeek said Sunday on the morning after Mystik Dan got his nose down at the wire for the narrowest of wins in Kentucky Derby 2024. “I ran him back once in two weeks, and it completely backfired on me.”

Kentucky Derby 2024: 18-1 Mystik Dan wins by a nose.

That was in November, when the colt bred and owned primarily by Lance and Sharilyn Gasaway was wheeled back from his maiden win to finish a tired fifth in a Thanksgiving weekend allowance race at Churchill Downs.

McPeek already applied that lesson once when he chose not to bring Mystik Dan back three weeks after a victory in the postponed Southwest Stakes (G3).

“We skipped the Rebel (G2),” he said. “(It was) back too quick as well.”

So it is a definite maybe for the Preakness in 13 days at Pimlico. Or a definite maybe not.

“We’re going to have a lot of input,” Lance Gasaway said. “It’s all about the horse. Let’s see how the horse comes out of the race. Give him two or three days. If he comes out good, we’ll look at it. If not, we’ll worry about the horse more than anything.”

After a typically grueling Derby victory, Mystik Dan posed for the requisite clatter of shutters as he had his picture taken while getting his morning bath just after 7 a.m. EDT on a comfortably sunny morning. Then he took a shed-row walk as did Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks winner Thorpedo Anna and some of McPeek’s other horses.

McPeek admitted the son of Goldencents did not have the most restful night after the 1 1/4-mile race that ended in a photo finish with Sierra Leone and Forever Young.

“He left three-quarters of his feed,” he said. “Most trainers don’t talk about all this. Look, cards on the table, face up. He left three-quarters of his feed. We couldn’t hardly get everybody out of the barn until midnight, so he didn’t really get a great night’s rest. We’ll watch him today and tomorrow.”

A trip back to the track will come Wednesday, but McPeek said the decision on whether to ship Mystik Dan to Baltimore next week might not come before next Monday, when entries will be taken and posts drawn for the Preakness.

“It’ll be one of those where we’ll take it up to the last minute,” said McPeek, who won the Preakness with filly Swiss Skydiver in 2020. “We’ll see. We’ll let him tell us. If he’s not in the feed tub, he won’t run. And he ran hard yesterday. But we’ll see.”

McPeek did not get much sleep, either, after he got his first victories in the Derby and the Oaks, making him the first trainer since Ben Jones in 1952 to win both races the same year.

“We’re just trying to keep it steady,” McPeek said. “Never too high. Never too low. I don’t want to be any different than I’ve ever been.”

McPeek did offer a tantalizing possibility for Thorpedo Anna. If she does not face fillies in the Acorn (G1) next month, she could take on males in the Belmont Stakes, which will be run at 1 1/4 miles at Saratoga instead of the traditional 1 1/2 miles.

“The Acorn (G1) or the Belmont,” said McPeek, who won the third jewel of the Triple Crown in 2002 with 70-1 long shot Sarava. “I’m going to choose between one of the two. To supplement for the Preakness is not going to make any sense for her, because it’s $200,000, and she’s not nominated. It’s only $50,000 for the Belmont. That’s chump change, right?”

McPeek said it was unlikely that both Thorpedo Anna and Mystik Dan would line up against each other in the Belmont.

For now, then, the Maryland Jockey Club will have an anxious wait for an answer from McPeek and the Gasaways. In recent years the Preakness was run without Derby winners Country House in 2019 and Rich Strike in 2022. It also did not have Mandaloun in 2021, although he had not yet been promoted to his Derby victory over the eventually disqualified Medina Spirit.

“Number one, if we go into the race, we want to win,” Lance Gasaway said. “I’m pretty sure (Bob) Baffert is going to have (Arkansas Derby winner) Muth in there. You take (those) horses in there at full speed that have been off for a month, a month-and-a-half, and we’re coming in there in two weeks, that’s a big ask for this horse. We’ll just have to see how he comes out of the race.”