Preakness notes: Cox says Catching Freedom is still maybe

If Catching Freedom hasn’t yet talked trainer Brad Cox into running in the 149th Preakness Stakes next Saturday at Pimlico, the Grade 2 Louisiana Derby winner at least is chirping in his ear.

The colt owned by Albaugh Family Stables had a spirited gallop Friday morning at Churchill Downs, an example of the training that has nudged Cox from not considering the $2 million Preakness to putting the 1 3/16-mile classic on the table.

Preakness: McPeek makes call Saturday on Mystik Dan.

“I’d say it's possible,” Cox said. “We enter on Monday, so we’re going to watch him through the week. He had a nice gallop this morning. I’m happy with the way he came out of the Derby from a soundness standpoint. Everything is going super.”

Catching Freedom, with Flavien Prat in the saddle, closed from 15th to finish fourth on Saturday in Kentucky Derby 2024, two lengths behind triumphant Mystik Dan.

“We prepared him for what we hoped was the race of his life in the Kentucky Derby,” Cox said. “I thought he ran very well. The (speed) figures we got out of the Kentucky Derby stacked up with his Louisiana Derby figures, so we felt we got a good effort out of him. The risk is running him back in two weeks and maybe jeopardizing a lot of the other races we could look at moving forward. I don’t know that. But we are asking a lot of him over a span of two weeks. We’ll watch him through the weekend and make a decision.”

Cox said the alternative to the Preakness would be waiting for Churchill Downs’ June 9 running of the Matt Winn (G3) as a steppingstone to Monmouth Park’s July 20 renewal of the Haskell (G1). A lesser possibility could be waiting for the 1 1/4-mile Belmont Stakes at Saratoga on June 8.

“The reward would be winning a Grade 1,” he said of the Preakness. “It’s a classic. If someone asks you if you’d rather win the Preakness or the Haskell, you’d rather win the Preakness. My immediate thought after the Derby was no Preakness. As we look at the group of horses, it’s a solid group, and first and foremost is how he’s doing. We do like what we see from him. That’s one reason why we’re entertaining the idea of running.”

Asked if a factor is the competition, Cox said, “Sure. From the probables we’ve seen, I think he stacks up with them. There’s nobody to run from.”

The fact that Catching Freedom had six weeks between the 1 3/16-mile Louisiana Derby and the Kentucky Derby works in his favor, Cox said.

“We’re looking at it as three races in eight weeks as opposed to three races in six weeks if he’d been in the Blue Grass or Wood.”

Did hindsight reveal a way that Catching Freedom could have earned a better placing in the Derby?

“I thought he got a great trip. I can’t really see anything that would have said, oh, if we’d done this,” Cox said, adding with a laugh, “Maybe if Brian Hernandez wouldn’t have ridden Mystik Dan as well as he did, or maybe if Sierra Leone and Forever Young weren’t as good as they are, we would have gotten there. That’s what I’m going to go with. So, to answer your question, no. No excuse. I love the way Flavien rode him. He had a good trip, broke and was a little bit more involved than I think a lot of people thought he’d be. But bottom line, he was the fourth-best horse that day.”

Lukas: Probably no breeze for Just Steel

Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas said that he doesn’t think he will breeze Just Steel between a 17th-place finish in the Derby and a scheduled next start in the Preakness.

Lukas, 88, has saddled six winners from 46 Preakness starters since 1980 and said he makes his decision on an individual basis on whether to breeze horses between races.

Just Steel chased the pace early in the Derby and tired in the stretch.

Lukas’s other Preakness horse Seize the Grey won the Pat Day Mile (G2) on Saturday.

“I've done it both ways. In my Preakness winners I've tried different things,” Lukas said. “You have to read the horses, and both of these horses came back very, very well. In fact Just Steel is actually seems sharper to me this week than he did the prior week to the Derby. So what we'll do is just monitor him every day. It's a day-to-day decision when training horses. You read and see what you think they need and don't need. So I probably will let him extend himself a couple of days, but I don't think I'll work him. I think he had a hard six furlongs in that race. And I think I won't work him, but he'll go to the track every day and he is sharp. So we'll play it day by day.”

What’s in a name for Uncle Heavy

There is little doubt Uncle Heavy has the most distinctive name of the horses headed to the Preakness. The Pennsylvania-bred colt is named for the Mark Reid, the older brother of trainer Butch Reid.

Mark spent 46 years in racing as a trainer and bloodstock agent before retiring in 2022 at age 72 with 1,821 victories. He was a heavyweight wrestler at the University of Maryland and became known as Heavy when he went to work on the track.

“That was my brother's original nickname back from when he worked for Dickie Dutrow back in the '70s,” Butch Reid said. “He picked it up there, and then the family kind of picked up on it. Then the nieces and nephews started calling him Uncle Heavy, and it kind of stuck.”

Mark Reid’s wife Barbara is listed as the breeder of Uncle Heavy, a son of Social Inclusion, the third-place finisher in the 2014 Preakness.

Butch Reid said in retirement his brother remains connected to racing.

“He’s still got some mares out on his farm in Chester County,” he said. “He stays up on it. We talk a couple of times a week. He stays involved.