Kingsbarns Heads Field of Eight Older Horses on Preakness (G1) Eve

BALTIMORE – Blue Heaven Farm’s 4-year-old Pyrenees, named for the mountain range on the border of France and Spain, certainly has experienced peaks and valleys. Now, off three straight wins, the 4-year-old will make the ascent into graded-stakes company in Friday’s historic $250,000 Pimlico Special (G3) at Pimlico Race Course.

The 1 3/16-mile Pimlico Special for 3-year-olds and up is among six stakes, three graded, worth $1 million in purses on a spectacular 14-race program headlined by the 100th running of the $300,000 George E. Mitchell Black-Eyed Susan (G2) for 3-year-old fillies, serving as a fitting prelude to Saturday’s 149th Preakness Stakes (G1), Middle Jewel of the Triple Crown.

Friday’s first race post time is 11:30 a.m. EST.

Trained by Cherie DeVaux, Pyrenees had been off a full year when he won a maiden race this past December in New Orleans, followed by an entry-level allowance at the Fair Grounds and a second-level allowance at Keeneland. Kentucky Oaks (G1) and Derby (G1)-winning jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. will attempt to go to 4-for-4 on the 4-year-old son of Into Mischief.

DeVaux’s patience has paid off after Pyrenees went 0-for-4 as a 2-year-old — with an encouraging second and third but also a pair of nowhere finishes — before being sidelined.

“He forced us to give him time with an injury,” DeVaux said. “At the time, he was really immature mentally. He was quite aloof in the beginning of his career. His first three races since he’s come back, you can’t ask him to do any more. He’s come back obviously better than before.

“Before, he was just always really immature in everything about him. His second start, he ran a really good race, running second. Then he had a couple of disappointing races. He’s a goofball, I guess, is the only way to put it, especially when he was younger. He can go a little bit farther than he’s been running, but this is the next logical step.”

Hernandez was aboard for DeVaux’s first win as a trainer at Gulfstream Park on March 29, 2019 in a $50,000 maiden claiming race. Of Hernandez riding Pyrenees, she said, “He gets along with the horse. Brian can be patient, not just in the race but with his antics.”

The likely favorite in the field of eight is Spendthrift Farm’s Kingsbarns, whose 5-for-7 lifetime record includes winning both starts this year after being off 8 1/2 months. Kingsbarns’ victories include Keeneland’s Ben Ali (G3) April 20 and last year’s Louisiana Derby (G2) in his third lifetime start. His only defeats came by a neck in last year’s Pegasus at Monmouth Park and a 14th-place finish after being part of a fast pace in the Kentucky Derby.

Red Route One, fourth in last year’s Preakness, won the Fair Grounds’ New Orleans Classic (G2) two starts ago before finishing third in the Oaklawn Handicap (G2). He’s one of two horses in the Pimlico Special trained by record-setting Steve Asmussen, who also is sending out Oaklawn allowance winner Harlocap.

“Red Route One is a very good horse,” Asmussen said Sunday morning at Churchill Downs. “He’s not made a million-and-a-half [dollars] by accident. I think the racetrack ought to suit Harlocap. On his best day he’s capable of a very good race. He’ll obviously have to step up to the competition. It’s a good opportunity.”

Eleven-time winner Time for Trouble, an $8,000 claim three years ago by trainer and co-owner Jeff Hiles, is adept on dirt or grass. The main thing he needs is longer distances, which encouraged Hiles to ship the 7-year-old to Old Hilltop for the Pimlico Special. In his past two starts, Time for Trouble was fourth in the Keeneland’s Ben Ali and third in Oaklawn’s Essex (G3).

“He’s doing really well, so we’re going to take him up there and run him,” the Kentucky-based Hiles said. “We claimed him for $8,000 in spring of 2021. We stretched him out his next race, and he broke the track record at Belterra on the grass. That’s not saying a whole lot, but still, we stretched him out a quarter-mile farther than he’d ever been.

“Everything over a mile and three-sixteenths is like his specialty. He ran really well in the Ben Ali, came running real strong at the end, but he had a bad trip. He can run all day long but you’ve got to get him going earlier than normal,” he added. “The grass horses don’t normally slow down at the end, where your dirt horses will. Your grass horses usually are picking them up. So he’s one where he’s picking [dirt horses] off while they’re slowing down.”

Maryland-based Be Better, winner of Laurel Park’s Deputed Testamony last summer, will need to heed his name to earn his first graded-stakes victory in only his second attempt. He most recently finished fourth in Laurel’s Native Dancer after winning an allowance race for his sixth career victory.

“I worked him this morning and gave him kind of a long, steady-type work, to kind of make sure that he has plenty of air in his lungs,” trainer Brittany Russell said. “Be Better is consistent. He’s a good boy. He trains great. It’s a tough spot, but honestly with a horse like this that needs the ground he does to be effective, it’s kind of the spot that we have to go for.”

While some horsemen are hesitant to run back in two weeks, owner-trainer Norman ‘Lynn’ Cash is not among them. He’ll run his well-traveled 7-year-old Double Crown back in 10 days after finishing second in a Parx allowance. The Pimlico Special also will be the near-millionaire’s ninth start of the year.

Double Crown’s last three wins have come in the gelding’s birth state of Maryland, including Laurel’s Robert T. Manfuso Stakes last December and Pimlico’s Polynesian this past September. His biggest win to date was New York’s Kelso Handicap (G2) at 42-1 odds in 2022.

The Brazilian-bred 8-year-old Royal Ship, a Grade 1 winner in South America, makes his second start for trainer Graham Motion in the Pimlico Special after spending the last three seasons with Richard Mandella in California, winning a pair of Grade 2 stakes. In his first start in 8 1/2 months, Royal Ship was bumped at the start and finished last of eight in the seven-furlong Frank Whiteley April 13 at Laurel.