Can Mage Win the Triple Crown?
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Most handicappers dismissed Mage at 15-1 in the Kentucky Derby because he didn’t fit the profile of a Kentucky Derby winner.
Mage had only three lifetime starts and did not race as a 2-year-old. Generally, that’s a sign of a horse that lacks the foundation and seasoning to win a race as competitive and congested as the Derby. Until Justify in 2018, no horse had won the Kentucky Derby without racing as a 2-year-old since Apollo in 1882. That’s a gap of 136 years.
Now that Mage has overcome that bit of history, can he follow in the hoofprints of Justify and win the Triple Crown? It’s more than possible. In fact, the same reasons bettors dismissed Mage in the Derby are why he now appears formidable in the remaining two legs of the Triple Crown. He’s relatively fresh and lightly raced, not worn down from the Kentucky Derby prep grind.
Mage has an excellent chance to win the Preakness on Saturday and is the 8-5 morning-line favorite to do so. Winning the Belmont Stakes, the third and longest jewel of the Triple Crown, may prove to be more difficult, but is not beyond his scope.
Expectations Always High
Unlike Rich Strike last year, who won the Derby at 80-1 and hasn’t won a race since, Mage had the credentials to win on the first Saturday in May at Churchill Downs and there was nothing fluky about the result.
While his three career starts was tied for fewest in the Derby field, Mage put up competitive speed figures in all three of those races. After winning his career debut in January, he lost twice to Forte, who was the morning-line Derby favorite before being forced to scratch because of a foot bruise. In the Florida Derby, Mage made a dramatic (but perhaps premature) move around the final turn to circle the entire field, only to be passed by Forte in the final strides, beaten just a length.
Then he rallied from off the pace and won the Kentucky Derby by a length, posting a lifetime-best Beyer speed figure of 105. Interestingly, none of the horses that finished behind Mage in the Derby are challenging him again in the Preakness — the first time only one Derby horse will run in the Preakness since 1969.
Mage is the son of promising sire Good Magic and was sold at auction twice for competitive prices. He was purchased for $235,000 at the Keeneland Yearling Sate in 2021, then for $290,000 at the Midlantic Two-Year-Olds in Training Sale at Timonium, Md., in May 2022.
His trainer, Venezuela native Gustavo Delgado, is not high-profile, training primarily at Gulfstream Park in South Florida. But Delgado’s resume is impressive. He’s a three-time winner of Venezuela’s equivalent of the Triple Crown. He began training horses in the U.S. about a decade ago, and had starters reach the Kentucky Derby in 2016 and 2019, neither time hitting the board.
Jockey Javier Castellano, also a native of Venezuela, is a Hall of Fame rider (inducted in 2017) with more than 5,500 career victories, including the Preakness twice, the Kentucky Oaks and 12 Breeders’ Cup World Championship races. He was 0-for-15 in the Kentucky Derby until Mage’s victory.
Mage’s Preakness Edge
Mage came out of the Kentucky Derby in excellent shape, according to Delgado, and arrived at Pimlico in Baltimore on Monday. Generally, Derby winners who run in the Preakness do well — 36 horses have won both, and the last two to do it, American Pharoah and Justify, went on to win the Triple Crown.
The trend over the past three years was for the Derby winner to skip the Preakness (Rich Strike in 2022) or the Preakness winner not to run in the Derby (Rombauer in 2021, the filly Swiss Skydiver in 2020), in part because of the quick two-week turnaround between the two races. That has reignited the conversation about changing 100-plus years of tradition and spacing out the Triple Crown races farther apart.
As for Preakness 148 on Saturday, Mage has several factors in his favor. One is the absence of Forte, who remains sidelined, likely until the Belmont Stakes.
And Mage won’t have to work his way between or around 17 other horses, as he did in the Derby. Generally a slow starter with gate issues, Mage will face only seven rivals, the smallest Preakness field since 2018.
The Preakness distance of 1 3/16 miles is slightly shorter than the Derby and is obviously well within Mage’s scope. His speed figures have improved in each of his past three races and his Beyer figure from the Derby is easily the highest in the field.
For all those reasons, Mage was designated the morning-line favorite when Preakness post positions were drawn on Monday. Mage drew the No. 3 post. This time, his backers will have to settle for less than 2-1, far less attractive than his double-digit Derby odds.
After the Preakness
Several of Mage’s Preakness rivals are a threat to win, most notably First Mission, Blazing Sevens and National Treasure. But If Mage gets out of the starting gate cleanly and runs as fast as he did in the Derby, horse racing will likely have its first shot at a Triple Crown since Justify in 2018.
Of course, the Belmont Stakes three weeks later would present its own unique set of challenges if Mage is able to remain on the Triple Crown trail. Among them:
The demanding 1 1/2-mile distance, the longest of the three Triple Crown races. Mage’s most formidable Derby rivals who are sitting out the Preakness, such as Forte and Tapit Trice, would have five weeks rest heading into the Belmont. And Mage would be attempting to win his third race in five weeks. One online wagering platform earlier this week listed Mage at 6-1 to win the Triple Crown.
But first thing’s first. The immediate order of business for Mage is winning the second jewel on Saturday. Unlike the Derby, nobody will be surprised if he does.
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