BALTIMORE — If recent history is any guide, Kentucky Derby winner I’ll Have Another has about a 33 percent chance of winning Saturday’s Preakness Stakes and going on to shoot for the whole Triple Crown.
That’s a pretty good number. In the past 20 years, 19 Derby winners have gone to Pimlico (Grindstone missed out in 1996 through injury) and seven of them have won. A $2 win bet on them all would have cost $38 and returned $53.
But if you talk to I’ll Have Another’s trainer Doug O’Neill, you’d think the colt has a 99 percent chance of waltzing off with the blanket of Black-Eyed Susans. Talk about confident.
At the stakes barn yesterday after I’ll Have Another had completed his customary jog and gallop, not even the gloomy rain could dampen O’Neill’s spirits.
“This horse is doing fantastic,” he bubbled. “He’s maintained his tremendous long stride and he’s skipping over the track as he did at Churchill Downs. I was confident before the Derby and I’m just as confident here. All we need is a bit of luck to repeat.”
But the Preakness is a different race on a different track at a different distance. I’ll Have Another faces a whole new set-up here. The chief difference is that if Bodemeister, the Derby pacesetter and favorite, goes in the Preakness, as expected, he may be the only speed in the race.
That would allow him to dictate the fractions without being pressured by a speed maniac like Trinniberg as in the Derby. In that case, he might take some running down.
O’Neill kissed off that possibility out of hand. “The beauty about this guy is that he won a sprint wire-to-wire in his first race at Hollywood Park,” the trainer said. “His first step out of the gate is quick. He can put himself anywhere in a race. If Bodemeister is the lone speed, we’ll just be closer to him than we were in the Derby. We’ll be OK. This horse has Bodemeister’s kind of speed.”
Few winning Derby trainers have come to the Preakness under the gun as O’Neill. Hardly had he celebrated his historic Derby triumph than he was clobbered by a New York Times article detailing a dozen drug violation allegations over his 14 years as a trainer.
He took a $1000 fine and a 15-day suspension on one incident. He is contesting another.
“It’s a bummer,” he said yesterday. “We love our horses, we play by the rules and we’re challenging a previous allegation. It’s very expensive but we’re confident we will win.”
O’Neill, 43, is a genial, blue collar guy who started out with nothing but built up a hugely successful operation in Southern California. In 2006, his horses won $11.6 million in purses, second only to Todd Pletcher’s $27.6 million.
He presided over the second coming of John Henry when he claimed a horse, Lava Man, for $50,000 and turned him into a $5 million bonanza. O’Neill has won a cluster of training titles and three Breeders’ Cup championships.
Now he finds himself fighting for his reputation at the pinnacle of his success. “You know what they say — if it bleeds, it leads,” he said. “The Times is doing the old scare thing. Just when we’ve won the race of our lives, they sprang this on us. We’ve all got a job to do and theirs is to sell papers.
“But you can’t run away from things in life otherwise they’re gonna catch you. We have a great support system, we love our horses and they get the best of care. Life is not always roses. You just deal with things.”
For now at least, Doug O’Neill seems to be having the time of his life.