There will be no Triple Crown winner this year after Kentucky Derby hero Mystik Dan played second fiddle to Seize the Grey in the 149th Preakness Stakes at a muddy Pimlico Race Course and credited 88-year-old legend D Wayne Lukas with his seventh winner of the race, 44-years after his first with Codex.
Seize The Day all-the-way in Preakness (image Alex Evers)
With Jaime Torres having his first ride in a classic, Seize the Grey led at every call. The son of Arrogate defeated Mystic Dan (Goldencents) by two and a quarter lengths with Catching Freedom (Constitution) a head back in third.
Coming off a win in the Grade II Pat Day Mile at Churchill Downs, Seize the Grey advances his record to four wins and three thirds from ten starts with earnings of $1,819,938.
Seize the Grey has 2,570 different owners who bought up 5,000 shares of the colt at $127 a share.
Michael Behrens, founder of MyRacehorse, estimated about 300 of those owners were on hand at Pimlico Saturday, reported the Blood Horse.
"Isn't that something to make that many people happy?" Lukas said.
A day Jaime Torres will never forget (image Alex Evers)
“It's a helluva concept, it really is. To see that many people happy in racing is really special. I'm happy, but I love that I could make them happy."
Lukas said that Seize the Grey would likely start in the Belmont Stakes because the third jewel of the Triple Crown will be run over a mile and a quarter at Saratoga.
"If they are going to beat him, they may want to extend it back to a mile and a half," Lukas said. "If we go (to the Belmont), he'll be tough. He can get a mile and a quarter. He would have gotten a mile and a quarter today."
The 25-year-old Puerto Rican, Jaime Torres inly took out a jockey’s license two year’s ago.
"He's such an amazing horse. He relaxed for me and he felt the other horses coming close and then gave me everything to the wire," Torres said.
Bred by Jamm, Ltd, Seize the Grey is a half-brother to stakes-placed Shoppingforpharoah (American Pharoah).
His stakes-placed dam Smart Shopping (Smart Stike) is a daughter of the stakes-winner Shop Again (Wild Again) a half-sister to Grade 1 Persoanl Ensign winner Miss Shop (Deputy Minister.
Besides Smart Shopping, Shop Again produced the Grade 1 winner Power Broker (Pulpit) and the stakes-winner Fierce Boots (Tiznow).
