With Kentucky Derby (G1) winner Golden Tempo awaiting the Belmont Stakes (G1) in June, Chip Honcho will be reunited with jockey Jose Ortiz for the 151st Preakness Stakes (G1) May 16 at Laurel Park.
The last jockey to win the first two legs of the Triple Crown on different horses was Calvin Borel in 2009. But in that case, he took off 50-1 Derby winner Mine That Bird to ride his 20-length Kentucky Oaks (G1) winner Rachel Alexandra in the Preakness. Mine That Bird finished second to the filly by a length under Mike Smith.
Ortiz was aboard for Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen when Chip Honcho won a maiden race at Churchill Downs after finishing second at Keeneland in his debut last fall. After Chip Honcho won the Gun Runner Stakes Dec. 20 at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots to end his 2-year-old season, he faced Golden Tempo three times at the New Orleans track. He was a close fourth when Golden Tempo won the Lecomte Stakes (G3), a close second while Golden Tempo was third in the Risen Star Stakes (G2) and fifth while Golden Tempo was third in the Louisiana Derby (G2).
"He broke his maiden," Asmussen said of Ortiz, who has run away with the Fair Grounds riding titles in his two winters based in New Orleans. "He's familiar with the horse. Just through consistently working with Jose over the winter and stuff, you're always discussing races and racehorses. It was his belief in Golden Tempo that proved true."
Ortiz has become one of Asmussen's go-to riders. That includes winning three straight races on the stable's star older horse Magnitude, most recently in the $12 million Dubai World Cup (G1) March 28 at Meydan Racecourse.
Meanwhile, Asmussen dismisses suggestions that having finished in front of the Derby winner before computes to future success.
"It doesn't do anything for your next race," he said. "It doesn't. That's what I love about horse racing; your past performances don't win. You have to be ready on the day. I've said it a million times: You're so sure of the outcome they let you bet on it."
But whereas Golden Tempo went on to Derby glory, Asmussen felt a better scenario for Chip Honcho was to run in front of the 4,800-person limit at Laurel Park, where the Preakness is staged this year during the rebuilding of Pimlico Race Course.
"It's all about the afternoon. He handles extremely well in the morning, and he hasn't handled exactly like we want some afternoons," he added. "The decision of waiting to the Preakness is the unique circumstance of the capacity at Laurel this year.
"When he handles (the race environment) and things go right, that's what we want to get back to. That's our job. I like how he's doing really well right now. He looked beautiful on the racetrack this morning. The Preakness is wide open and a great opportunity for a Classic."
Asmussen dubbed the 2026 Kentucky Derby "the Curlin Derby," given that his two-time Horse of the Year and 2007 Preakness winner is the sire of Golden Tempo and the broodmare sire of runner-up Renegade, and third-place Ocelli's sire is the Curlin stallion Connect . Chip Honcho—purchased for $210,000 by co-owner Lee Ackerley at the 2024 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July Yearling Sale—also is a son of Connect, who stands at Lane's End for $10,000.
"Connect was an excellent racehorse, actually beat Gun Runner in the Pennsylvania Derby," Asmussen said, referencing another of his Hall of Fame horses that was Horse of the Year the next year. "An excellent physical. When Lee acquired Chip Honcho, obviously the influence (from Curlin) gave us a lot of confidence."
Express Kid Works May 7 at Lone Star for Preakness
Paradise Equine Farm, Bradley and Sharon Kleven's stakes winner Express Kid, unraced since a runner-up finish in the Sunland Park Derby Feb. 15, breezed May 7 at Lone Star Park in preparation for the Preakness.
Working with 3-year-old stakes-placed gelding Forty Seven, Express Kid went 5 furlongs from the gate in 1:00.71 over a fast main track. It was the second-fastest of 10 horses at the distance, with Forty Seven credited in 1:00.85.
"I was really happy with the work this morning. Really happy," trainer Justin Evans said. "The other horse is a pretty decent horse but he outworked him pretty easy. I thought the work was great. He left there like we wanted him to and had a big gallop-out, showed good energy (and) came back out of it good. I couldn't be more pleased.
"We've got to be on our 'A' game for a race like the Preakness," he added. "I thought it was a really good work he turned in. He handled everything well, came back great and happy and looked really good after. It was just what we wanted to see."
Express Kid made his first five starts for trainer Wade Rarick, winning the Remington Springboard Mile Stakes Dec. 20 at Remington Park in his last start before Brad Kleven purchased the son of Bodexpress for $800,000 out of a one-horse Fasig-Tipton Digital Flash Sale Jan. 9.
In his two-turn debut in the 1 1/16-mile Sunland Derby, Express Kid set the pace as the favorite and wound up beaten a nose by Pavlovian, who went on to run second in the Louisiana Derby and last in the Kentucky Derby.
"I wish maybe that we'd had a race since then but we ran into some issues. He got a little sick on me there for a few days where all that stuff was kind of going around everywhere it seemed like," Evans said. "He spiked a fever for a few days. He came out of it fast, but it eliminated us from kind of getting a race where we wanted to be."
Despite the gap between starts, Evans felt it allowed him and his staff to get to know the latest addition to their barn.
"We got a little time with him in barn and got him to fit in and go into our routine, so that is a definite plus," he said. "You've got (to) look on the bright side of it. He's fresh, he's doing good, he's had a couple of nice works over this Lone Star track and seems like he's going in the right direction."
Evans said he expects Express Kid to arrive May 11 at Laurel Park. He has yet to firm up a rider.
"We feel like we're coming in with confidence," he said. "We're happy where we're at and, hopefully, ready to come with the 'A' game for sure."
'Not Much Downside' to Preakness for Bull by the Horns
Peachtree Stable and Mark Corrado's Bull by the Horns, an eye-catching winner of the March 21 Rushaway Stakes at Turfway Park last time out, will work this weekend with designs on running in the Preakness.
Bull by the Horns was entered to run in the May 9 Peter Pan Stakes (G3) at Aqueduct Racetrack but was withdrawn when Gulfstream Park-based trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. was unable to breeze the Essential Quality colt before the race.
"He was going to run but it rained Sunday and when I tried to work him again Monday, it rained again," Joseph said Thursday. "When we looked at the Preakness, we thought there's not much downside. He's going to like the distance, so I would say there's a strong possibility he's going to run in the Preakness."
Joseph is leaving his options open when it comes to the next work for Bull by the Horns, whose most recent timed breeze of :47.45 for 4 furlongs came April 26 at Gulfstream.
"He's going to work I would say either Saturday or Sunday. It could even be tomorrow," Joseph said. "He's doing good. He's ready to run."
Bull by the Horns graduated second time out in a 1-mile maiden special weight last November at Gulfstream. He ran third in a Jan. 16 optional claiming allowance at Tampa Bay Downs to kick off his 3-year-old season, then ran seventh in Gulfstream's Fountain of Youth Stakes (G2) Feb. 28.
In the Rushaway, contested at 1 1/16 miles over Turfway's Tapeta surface, Bull by the Horns trailed by as many as 9 3/4 lengths and was still last after 6 furlongs before uncorking a wide rally through the stretch to emerge from a four-way photo a head in front of runner-up Steel Imperium. Third-place finisher Trendsetter came back to upset the April 11 Lexington Stakes (G3) at odds of 32-1.
Two horses from the Lexington, the second and third-place finishers The Hell We Did and Corona de Oro, respectively, are also pointing to the 1 3/16-mile Preakness.
"It was a good win visually. He was way, way back and to win from that far back you have to have some kind of ability to do that," Joseph said. "Obviously his (speed) number didn't come back that fast, but the race came up productive. The horse that ran third came back to win the Lexington. Visually it was very important and the productivity of the race is even more important than numbers, in my opinion. That gives me a little confidence to go forward."
Legion Bloodstock Saw Athlete in Bargain Buy Ocelli
Jockey Tyler Gaffalione will be back aboard Ocelli—the winless horse that nearly won last Saturday's Kentucky Derby—when he runs in the Preakness. Gaffalione had never ridden Ocelli before the Derby, which they lost by a scant length as the longest shot in the field at more than 70-1 odds.
Gaffalione's Derby mount was supposed to be Jeff Ruby Steaks (G3) winner Fulleffort, but that horse was scratched two days before the race allowing Ocelli into the field and putting Gaffalione in position to be snapped up by Ocelli's team.
The Whit Beckman-trained Ocelli may be winless, but he's earned more than all but one of the probable entries for the middle jewel of the Triple Crown. Only Arkansas Derby (G1) runner-up Silent Tactic has made more at $1,051,922, thanks to racing in all four of Oaklawn Park's big-money stakes leading up to the Kentucky Derby, with a win and three seconds.
Ocelli's late-running third by a total of a length was worth $500,000 to bring the colt's earnings to $609,800. That payday is more than 40 times the $12,000 that the Legion Bloodstock partnership paid for Ocelli toward the end of the 2024 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October Yearling Sale.
"We buy a lot of those horses out of the back," Legion partner Kyle Zorn said Thursday morning at Churchill Downs while watching Ocelli jog. "We said it with (Kentucky Oaks runner-up) Drexel Hill. We paid $50,000 for her and $40,000 for ($896,215-earner) Honor Marie. We look for athletes. A lot of them, people overlook because they stand one way, or they're crooked here or something with their gait. But (Ocelli) just had all the physical characteristics that we look for, and we were kind of shocked nobody else was in on him.
"He was one of those that just had that standout walk we look for. He didn't seem to have a lot of (bidding) action, and we just took a shot," he added. "I don't remember what our opening bid was, but I remember when the hammer fell. We thought we got a deal."
Zorn said Legion partner Travis Durr did the bidding. Ocelli races in the name of Durr's wife, Ashley, along with Anthony Tate and Front Page Equestrian.
"Ever since he got him to his training center (in South Carolina), Travis loved him," Zorn said. "The biggest thing for us is when he got to Whit. I'll never forget, we got the phone call from Whit in November and he said, 'Hey, I'm going to get this horse to the Derby.' That was the beauty of it, with Travis' wife owning the majority of him, there was never any pressure. If he didn't run a good first race, or second race, or third race, we stayed the course because Whit kept believing."
Ocelli had a third sprinting at Churchill Downs in his debut, followed by a good second and third in two 1 1/16-mile maiden races at Fair Grounds before he moved into stakes company. After a pair of sixth-place finishes in Tampa Bay Downs' Sam F. Davis Stakes and Colonial Downs' Virginia Derby, he earned a crack at the Kentucky Derby with a late-running third in the Wood Memorial (G2) at Aqueduct.
"The crazy thing about this horse, if you watch his 'numbers'—we go off Thoro-Graph first and foremost—he ran a 9 (at Tampa) and a 7 in Virginia, a 5 in the Wood, and now a 2 in the Derby," with the lower the faster, Zorn said. "I think he's just one of these horses who's coming into himself right in the middle of the Triple Crown."
Beckman's original thinking did not include the Preakness after Ocelli's big Derby.
"That night, we all came back to the barn, just kind of celebrating," Zorn said. "(Ocelli) about ripped the feed tub out of the groom's arm. Had his head out the whole day, the very next day. He wasn't one of these horses that stay in the back of his stall (after a race).
"I'd like see and say that this horse is going to take a step forward," he added. "Whit was making changes along the way. It was only his second race taking the blinkers off. A lot of people forget he just missed finishing second in the Wood by a dirty head bob. I think if he 'pairs' (runs another 2), he's going to be pretty darn salty with the horses they say are going."
Trainer Ennis May be Up for Great White's Pre-Preakness Work
Trainer John Ennis wants to run Great White in the Preakness Stakes, but only if the horse's energy level remains high. In his mind, there's no better way to determine that than to get on the massive gray gelding himself in Saturday's scheduled easy half-mile work at The Thoroughbred Center in Lexington.
Great White reared up and flipped over behind the starting gate as the horses were loading for the Derby, making himself a late scratch.
Ennis said the gelding came out of the incident unscathed, but the trainer wants to be certain that Great White is at his best before making the trek to Maryland.
READ: Great White Doing Well After Flipping, Derby Scratch
"I want to feel him myself. I might just ride him myself," the trainer said by phone. "If I'm happy with him, I'll enter. He has to be fresh. If he's not fresh and rearing up and feeling good, he can't go. He has to be feeling good to go to the Preakness, like he was all week at Churchill. He was fresh and feeling good about himself."
Alex Achard, aboard for all four of the gelding's races, has the Preakness mount.
Since shipping back to Ennis' base the day after the Derby, Great White has not missed a day of training. He said an equine chiropractor went over the horse May 6 "and couldn't find anything wrong with him. He's not changed one bit since Derby week. The horse is fit. He actually looks stronger this week than he did going into Derby week. He just looks physically better."
Ennis said Derby week that Great White was doing better than he was heading into Keeneland's April 4 Blue Grass Stakes (G1), in which he was fifth in his first start on dirt. The gelding's first three races came on the Tapeta at Turfway Park, capped by winning the John Battaglia Memorial Stakes.
"When he works fast, he puts a lot into it for a big horse," said Ennis, who owns Great White with breeder Three Chimneys Farm. "We worked him too fast before the Blue Grass (a half-mile in :47 3/5), and it kind of took the edge off him. You need the edge on him every race for him to run his best (and) have that rearing-up in him, that playing around."
Ennis said what happened behind the Derby starting gate was nobody's fault, that it was simply the result of Great White feeling full of himself.
"It wasn't meant to be," he said. "Yes, it's the Derby. Hopefully I'll be there again sometime. It was a learning curve. It was just unfortunate it happened in the Derby. Am I disappointed now or am I frustrated? Absolutely not."
This press release has been edited for content and style by BloodHorse Staff.
