Cloud Computing sprints to Preakness win at the wire
Classic Empire was second, and Derby winners Always Dreaming was eighth.
BALTIMORE - The 2016 2-year-old champion won the race battle with the 2017 Kentucky Derby winner but lost the Preakness war to a horse given a dream ride by Javier Castellano, America's champion jockey four years running, and readied perfectly by 2016 champion trainer Chad Brown.
Classic Empire, so unlucky in the Derby when he was smashed at the break, was sent right after Derby winner Always Dreaming from the start. Those two raced together around the first turn and down Pimlico's backstretch before Always Dreaming began to retreat on the far turn.
Classic Empire opened up a three-length lead at the eighth pole and looked like a winner. Racing for the third time in five weeks, Classic Empire then began to tire in the final yards, and 13-1 Cloud Computing, third behind the dueling leaders the whole way, making just the fourth start of his career and off a six-week break, had just enough to wear down the unfortunate Classic Empire to win by a head.
The winner is owned by Seth Klarman, who grew up three blocks from Pimlico in Baltimore's Mount Washington neighborhood. He was a regular at Pimlico as a young man.
"It's really been a thrill, and this has been the highlight of our [horse-owning] career so far," Klarman said of his partnership with Bill Lawrence.
Brown and Castellano were hoping the race would develop precisely as it did.
"We had a plan. We stuck with the plan. It worked out great," Castellano said.
The 13-1 winner ran the mile and three-sixteenths in 1 minute, 55.98 seconds and paid $28.80 to win. It was 4 3/4 lengths back to 31-1 Senior Investment in third. Always Dreaming, the 6-5 favorite, faded badly in the stretch, eventually finishing eighth, the same spot that Super Saver, trainer Todd Pletcher's other Derby winner, wound up in in the 2010 Preakness.
"We always liked this horse as a 2-year-old," Brown said. "He got injured up at Saratoga."
Cloud Computing did not make his first start until Feb. 11, a maiden win at Aqueduct. He finished second in the Gorham Stakes and third in the Wood Memorial, both also at Aqueduct. The colt could have gone on to the Derby, but the trainer and owners thought it was wise to pass on running in a 20-horse race with such an inexperienced horse.
"I'm not going to dispute the fact that running a fresh horse was part of our strategy," Brown said. "Classic Empire and Always Dreaming are two outstanding horses. Our strategy was, if we are ever going to meet them, let's take them on when they have two weeks' rest, and we have six."
It was Brown's first Preakness win in his first try. The trainer has the second-most powerful stable in New York behind Pletcher's. He has been a major force at the Breeders' Cup this decade and is renowned for winning major grass stakes. He had been building toward Triple Crown success.
Did his first classic win mean something beyond his other big wins?
"Absolutely," Brown said.
