There will be no Triple Crown winner this year after Oxbow won the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico with Kentucky Derby winner Orb fourth.
Oxbow’s win crowned the comeback of 50-year-old jockey Gary Stevens who returned to riding earlier this year after an absence of seven years.
The winner is trained by D Wayne Lukas who racked up his sixth win in the race and his 14th victory in a Triple Crown event.
“I get paid to spoil dreams,” Lukas said.
Stevens took Oxbow, a 15-1 shot who finished sixth in the Kentucky Derby, to the front straight out of the gate and held off Itsmyluckyday with Mylute third.
“I was running when I hit the lane,” Stevens said. “I thought that they would come and challenge him. I didn’t expect to go to the lead.
“This horse was so right today he pulled me to the lead.
“He was happy. His ears were up telling me he was content. He exploded coming off the turn.”
Orb, again ridden by Joel Rosario, went off the 3-5 favourite but didn’t seem to like running in the traffic that he encountered from his starting position on the rail and saw a five-race winning streak end.
No horse has won the Preakness starting from the inside gate since Tabasco Cat in 1994.
Stevens said he thought Oxbow didn’t get enough credit for his strong finish in the Kentucky Derby, but he knew he had plenty of horse.
“We came back and breezed him (on May 12), and what you saw (in the Preakness) is exactly how he acted in the workout.”
However, he wasn’t expecting it to be so easy.
“We came in here with a lot of confidence,” Stevens said. “”When I hit the half-mile pole, I said, ‘Are you kidding me? Is this happening?’ The race was over at that point.”
Oxbow’s victory means the Triple Crown drought will continue. The last horse to complete the treble was Affirmed in 1978.
“I’m disappointed,” Orb’s trainer Shug McGaughey said.
“I’ll be probably more disappointed tomorrow. I know the game – it is highs and lows.”
