Seize the Grey captures muddy Preakness, giving Lukas his 7th

Baltimore

Preakness 2024 was won at the finish line. Not at the end, when Seize the Grey finished triumphantly with 2 1/4 lengths to spare in Saturday’s race.

It was the first time past the finish line when first-time Preakness jockey Jaime Torres made sure he had both the lead and a clear path to keep it into the first turn. And the second. And the whole way around in the mud at Pimlico. That was the difference.

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“I was going to do whatever Imagination was going to do,” Torres said. “I knew he was going to go to the lead. I think we looked at each other, and (Frankie Dettori) said, ‘Will you go?’ And I went.”

And so it was that this son of Arrogate trashed the script that said Dettori would front-run Imagination to trainer Bob Baffert’s record ninth Preakness win. He also rewrote the popular plot that said Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan would stay alive for the Triple Crown.

Instead, this was another chapter in the D. Wayne Lukas work that rivals a Wagner opera. Seize the Grey (9-1), with his nearly gate-to-wire trip around the 1 3/16 miles of sopping wet dirt, provided the Hall of Fame trainer with his seventh victory in the Preakness and his 15th in a Triple Crown race.

Yes, at 88. His ability to stay relevant in an ever-changing sport makes even his vanquished rivals feel good. Congratulations were quick to come from Baffert and Mystik Dan’s trainer Kenny McPeek and Imagination’s co-owner Jack Wolf.

“I think they want to get rid of me,” Lukas said. “Maybe they want me to retire. I don’t think that’ll happen.”

The winning formula Saturday was a simple as it gets. Get the lead early, and splash mud on trailing rivals. Seize the Grey not only broke alertly from post 5 in the field of eight 3-year-olds, it did not hurt that stablemate Just Steel, immediately to his right with Joel Rosario riding, veered outward from the gate. That gave Torres clear sailing to fend off Imagination (4-1), who broke from the outside post and kept pace until flattening in the turn for home.

“I couldn’t get him to relax,” Dettori said after Imagination faded to finish seventh. “Tried to switch leads, and he just didn’t go.”

Seize the Grey’s early fractions of 23.98, 47.33 and 1:11.95 did not look like they were too much for Mystik Dan (2-1), who went off as the post-time favorite. After settling in mid-pack under Brian Hernandez Jr., he moved within two lengths of the lead before the eighth pole proved to be a furlong too far.

“As we were going into the second turn, and Imagination dropped off a bit, I was able to take his spot,” Hernandez said. “I’m like, OK, we’re going to get to Wayne’s horse. I thought my horse was just going to be able to run by him, and his horse didn’t come back to us.”

Seize the Grey passed through a mile in 1:37.53 before finishing with a winning time of 1:56.82 on the muddy, sealed track.

Mystik Dan placed second. He was a head better than Catching Freedom (7-2), who came from seven lengths behind to take third.

“I thought we had a big chance turning for home,” said Brad Cox, who also trained Catching Freedom to a fourth-place result in the Derby. “I thought he ran well. He leveled off a little bit late, but overall good effort. He ran really well, beaten just a nose by the Derby winner.”

Triple Crown traditionalists could be emboldened by the fact that the top three finishers Saturday all came back only two weeks after racing at Churchill Downs.

Tuscan Gold (4-1), Just Steel (10-1), Uncle Heavy (7-1), Imagination and Mugatu (17-1) finished fourth through eighth in that order.

Seize the Grey paid $21.60, $8.40 and $4.40; Mystik Dan $4.20 and $2.80; and Catching Freedom $3.20.

Where Lukas is the oldest trainer ever to win a Triple Crown race, the winning ownership is as modern as it gets.

For four years, MyRacehorse has invited investors to buy micro-shares in equine stock that they acquire and then divide. In this case it cost $127 to get a piece of Seize the Grey, who cost $300,000 at auction. Their return Saturday was $1.2 million. Pay the trainer and the expenses first, and the shareholders might have cleared a few dollars Saturday on their original investment.

The super group was a minority partner in Authentic’s 2020 Kentucky Derby triumph. This time it was MyRacehorse all by itself, even if it meant 2,570 co-owners of 5,000 shares. Hundreds of the investors gathered in the infield winner’s circle to get in the victory photo.

“I’ve been in some cattle drives that were more organized than that,” Lukas said. “It was really chaotic.”

The thought process behind the victory might have been just as complicated. In nine previous starts, the only other time Seize the Grey led at every call after the start was in his maiden-breaking victory at Saratoga last summer. His win two weeks ago in the Pat Day Mile (G2) on the Kentucky Derby undercard might have been a preview of what would happen Saturday.

Reunited with Seize the Grey for the first time this year, Torres never was more than two lengths behind at any call in that one-turn test. Being forward early is the common denominator to all of the colt’s wins. He has been no closer than mid-pack for all his losses.

Lukas said it was Torres, 25, a native of Puerto Rico, who decided on his own to hustle Seize the Grey to the early lead. This came after he scolded the young rider recently for conceding a minor placing in a lower-level race that was going to end with a loss.

“I think you can overcoach a little bit on these riders, especially Jaime,” Lukas said. “If I’d have told him I wanted him to lay third or fourth or back mid-pack or something, as mad as I chewed his ass the first time, I think he’d have probably tried to do that. Here all of a sudden he breaks, and he’s on the lead and cruising. ... When he hit the half-mile pole, I turned to my wife Laurie, and I said watch out. We’re home free.”

It could be said the Preakness was like the second half of a gameplan that began May 4. One way or another, Lukas was going to race Seize the Grey, who was borderline to get into the 20-horse field for the Kentucky Derby.

“We can’t double enter in Kentucky,” Lukas said, “so if we had entered the Derby and ended up 21st, which we would have, we wouldn’t have been able to run in the Pat Day Mile. I had to make a decision to skip the Derby and go to the Pat Day Mile, or we wouldn’t have run anywhere. We would have just had to sit the whole Saturday out. I believe firmly in my heart that the Pat Day Mile put us in position to win this.”

Eleven years removed from his last classic victory with Oxbow, also in the Preakness, Lukas said he wanted to wait and see how Seize the Grey recovers from Saturday’s race before deciding on whether to go June 8 in the Belmont Stakes at Saratoga.

“I’m beginning to feel like Seize the Grey can run a mile-and-a-half, and this year (the Belmont) is a mile-and-a-quarter,” Lukas said. “I think if they’re going to beat him, they maybe should extend it back out a little bit, because if we go, we’ll be tough.”