BALTIMORE — Although 17 of the past 20 Preakness Stakes have been won by horses emerging from the Kentucky Derby, contrarian horseplayers never stop looking for a new face with the potential to spring an upset at a price.
Saturday’s Preakness has no less than eight such candidates, all at double-digit odds, stretching up to 30-1. The dreamers have a lot to work with.
One horse they should scan carefully is Pleasant Prince, who, on the face of it, has more negatives than a Kodak factory. Belying his name, the Prince was a cheap buy, picked up by his owners, Ken and Sarah Ramsey, for a paltry $30,000.
They launched his racing career in a maiden claimer, in which he promptly finished off the board — hardly an auspicious beginning.
To date, Pleasant Prince has won just one race, a mile maiden special at Churchill Downs last November, at nearly 13-1. His Beyer speed figures in his last two races, 82 and 78, suggest no chance.
So why would a horse with such meager credentials bother to show up at Pimlico to try to beat a Kentucky Derby winner like Super Saver?
Two good reasons: In two races earlier this year, Pleasant Prince went within an ace of besting Ice Box, who flew home to get second in the Kentucky Derby. If Ice Box was in the Preakness, he would be pressing Super Saver for favoritism.
In a nine-furlong allowance at Gulfstream in January, Pleasant Prince finished a half-length behind Ice Box. Two races later, he was beaten a scant nose in the Florida Derby by Ice Box.
If Pleasant Prince were to reproduce those performances this week, he would be right in the Preakness.
But there is another compelling reason to consider Pleasant Prince — his eye-popping workout at Keene-land over the weekend, hen he zoomed through 5 furlongs in 59 seconds. He looks to be a horse reaching a peak.
“He is absolutely awesome,” trainer Wesley Ward said at the barn at Lexington, Ky., yesterday. “He doesn’t have a pimple on him. He looks beautiful.
“In his work the other day, he started behind two other horses and finished 10 lengths in front of them at the end. This was as beautiful a work as you’re ever going to see.”
That covers a lot of works. Ward was the nation’s champion apprentice in 1984 when he won 335 races and $5 million in purses from his New York base. Since taking up training, he has turned into one of the nation’s sharpest backstretch shooters.
He engineered America’s first ever raid on the Royal Ascot meeting in England last June and stunned the Euros by winning two stakes with Jealous Anger and the 33-1 bomb Strike the Tiger.
He has ridden, trained and seen a lot of horses work, so his exuberance over Pleasant Prince’s work is worth noting.
The colt flunked his last two races, a well-beaten seventh in the Blue Grass Stakes on Keeneland’s synthetic surface and a so-so third in the one-mile Derby Trial over a muddy track at Churchill Downs.
“We were desperately trying to win enough money to get him into the Kentucky Derby,” Ward said. “So we threw a couple of Hail Marys in those races. It didn’t work out. But we are looking forward to the Preakness.”
Pleasant Prince will be ridden by the French-born Eclipse Award winning jockey Julien Leparoux, who rode him in his workout.
“He’s very excited about his chances,” Ward said.
A team that can rock Royal Ascot is not above rocking the folks at Pimlico.