This Preakness badly needs the Derby winner, and his star trainer, to show up

Cherie DeVaux still glowed Sunday morning after a magical, sleep-deprived night celebrating Golden Tempo’s charge from dead last to the front of an 18-horse Kentucky Derby field.

The story could not have been much tastier — the first female trainer ever to win the Derby, with a 23-1 underdog horse piloted by José Ortiz, who had to outride his older brother, Irad, aboard morning-line favorite Renegade.

More than a pioneer, the 44-year-old DeVaux is a classic racing character who grew up in horse-crazed Saratoga Springs, New York, and found the lure of the track stronger than that of a possible medical career. She began her apprenticeship as an exercise rider at Churchill Downs, two decades before her defining win on the same dirt.

Twelve hours after Golden Tempo won by a neck, she still couldn’t quite believe it. Yet she faced the same question that greets every Derby-winning trainer the morning after: Are you headed to the Preakness Stakes?

“As long as he’s in tiptop shape, we’ll talk about it,” she said. “It is on the table.”

It will be up to Golden Tempo, DeVaux added, how fit he looks upon returning to the training track at Keeneland, where her stable is based.

“It’s a lot different than what he’s done,” she said of possibly running back in two weeks. “He’s a horse that’s got a lot of constitution to him. He can handle something like that. But if one day he doesn’t look like he’s in tiptop shape, then we’ll pivot and come up with a different plan.”

It was roughly the same answer we hear every year. But, where the allure of a potential Triple Crown used to win out almost inevitably, the uncertainty is now real.

Rich Strike did not continue to Baltimore after winning the 2022 Derby as an 80-1 underdog. So be it; he probably wasn’t going to be favored anyway. But last year was different. Bill Mott, one of the sport’s top trainers, knew he had a legitimately excellent horse in Sovereignty, and still he opted not to chase a Triple Crown. He preferred to give his star horse five weeks off to prepare for a winning run in the Belmont Stakes.

Will DeVaux make a similarly cautious choice? Fans and Preakness organizers will anxiously await a verdict, likely to come later in the week.

One thing we do know: The 151st running of the Preakness badly needs the narrative zest DeVaux and her Derby champ would bring.

This was shaping up to be an odd year no matter what, with the Triple Crown series making its first visit to Laurel Park as Maryland moves forward with its $400 million rebuild of Pimlico Race Course. That means no infield party, no flashy concert and a crowd capped at about 4,800 as the Stronach Group, Maryland racing’s dominant entity for most of this century, operates the Preakness for a final time before handing the reins to a reconstituted Maryland Jockey Club in 2027.

Laurel Park is, for now, the functioning home of day-to-day racing in Maryland, but there’s no way to gussy it up enough to provide an ideal showcase for one of thoroughbred racing’s main events. Of course that’s nothing new, given Pimlico’s increasingly dilapidated state in recent years.

The Preakness won’t fully enter its new age until 2028, when the Pimlico redevelopment is expected to be complete. Next year’s race is scheduled to return to Baltimore but with patrons watching from temporary seating.

Temporary venue changes are part of Triple Crown lore. The Belmont Stakes is about to be run at Saratoga Race Course (at a shorter distance) for a third straight year before returning to its refurbished home on Long Island in 2027. Saratoga is one of the sport’s cherished settings, so these displaced Belmonts have felt like charming oddities.

Laurel Park, though a perfectly adequate racetrack, evokes no such romance. A Preakness there will be “unique,” Maryland Jockey Club President Bill Knauf said in a hopeful tone.

That won’t much matter for television viewers and bettors who simply hope for a worthy race. But the quality of the field is another source of concern as the Preakness runs up against the usual challenges posed by its place on the calendar, just two weeks after the Kentucky Derby

The 152nd Derby was rich with compelling figures and drama at the finish. On the other hand, Golden Tempo’s Beyer figure — the analytic most commonly used to compare performance relative to field quality and track conditions — was a historically low 95 (for reference, Sovereignty posted a 104 in winning last year’s Derby).

That doesn’t matter to the casual fan but suggests we’re not watching a memorably gifted crop of 3-year-olds.

The talent deficit will be more acute in a Preakness field that might be devoid of any top contender from the Derby other than Golden Tempo.

For years now, we’ve bemoaned the decreasing carryover from Derby to the Preakness, with trainers reluctant to bring their prize horses back on two weeks’ rest and thus depriving racing fans of the rivalries that used to elevate the Triple Crown.

Imagine Affirmed’s 1978 Preakness win with no Alydar as his faithful rival, or Sunday Silence in 1989 without Easy Goer pushing him to an unforgettable stretch run.

Such duels were never an every-year thing, but this Preakness sure would be more compelling with Renegade taking another shot at Golden Tempo and the Ortiz brothers aboard the top two contenders.

That’s part of the reason we’re hearing serious talk of a schedule change as the Preakness’ current television deal with NBC ends. Whether the race stays on NBC or goes to Fox, which broadcasts the Belmont Stakes, another week between the Derby and the Preakness would at least improve the chances for a star-studded field in Baltimore.

As it stands, the trend is clear: The Preakness gets the Derby winner (maybe) and a collection of challengers that either didn’t qualify for the first jewel or were maneuvered around it in hopes of stealing a lucrative win in a less competitive classic.

For her part, DeVaux did not advocate for a more spread-out Triple Crown schedule when asked about it Sunday morning.

“It would make anyone’s decision easier, but that’s not the Triple Crown,” she said. “The Triple Crown is hard to win for a reason, and I appreciate the history of it. … Current times have shown it can be done with the right horse.”

This year’s tentative Preakness field includes horses from two elite trainers, Chad Brown (DeVaux’s former boss) and Steve Asmussen, hoping to swoop in after bypassing the Derby.

Brown has won the Preakness twice — Cloud Computing in 2017 and Early Voting in 2022 — with this formula. He’ll try for a third with Iron Honor and/or Ottinho.

Asmussen will take a similar shot with Chip Honcho, winless in three starts this year after a promising close to his 2-year-old season. The colt earned enough points to compete in the Derby, but his Hall of Fame trainer bet he’d have a better chance against a less crowded, less talented field at Laurel Park.

Would such a victory stand up to Asmussen’s past Preakness triumphs with Hall of Fame horses Curlin and Rachel Alexandra? Perhaps not, but a smart trainer understands you don’t turn up your nose at a classic race with a $2 million purse.

Could this be the rare year when the winner of the Federico Tesio Stakes at Laurel has a real shot in the Preakness? Undefeated Taj Mahal won that prep race in dominant fashion for leading Maryland trainer Britanny Russell, so he’ll have his fans.

Other possible contenders include Bob Baffert trainees Crude Velocity, winner of the Pat Day Mile on the Derby undercard; and Cherokee Nation, who finished a disappointing sixth in the Santa Anita Derby coming off a brilliant maiden win.

Silent Tactic, scratched from the Derby field because of a minor foot injury after a runner-up finish in the Arkansas Derby for trainer Mark Casse, will likely be a top betting choice.

The massive gray gelding Great White, scratched from the Derby field after he flipped just before he was to be loaded in the starting gate, could also show up.

There’s Crupper, a two-time winner at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas, and Napoleon Solo, who won the Grade 1 Champagne Stakes in October but finished fifth in the April 4 Wood Memorial.

Or perhaps you like The Hell We Did, coming off a second-place finish in the Lexington Stakes at Keeneland, or Talkin, third in the Blue Grass Stakes and fifth in the Tampa Bay Derby. Pretty Boy Miah has won his last two starts at Aqueduct. Talk to Me Jimmy finished eighth in the Wood Memorial after winning the Withers Stakes at Aqueduct in February. Express Kid won three times as a 2-year-old but has raced just once, a second-place finish in the Feb. 15 Sunland Derby, this year.

It’s a collection of horses without much obvious appeal, even for fans who paid careful attention to Derby prep season. These are the also-rans from a class that did not exactly sparkle in the first jewel of the Triple Crown.

More than ever, this Preakness is dependent on the Derby champ showing up, accompanied by the charismatic DeVaux, bidding to become the first female trainer (Nancy Alberts finished second in 2002 with Magic Weisner) to win the race. Recent history tells us that’s no sure thing.