Bodog Beat

Recapturetheglory will compete in the $1 million Preakness Stakes. (AP Images)

The connections of fifth-place Derby finisher Recapturetheglory have decided to contest the $1 million Preakness Stakes, making the Illinois Derby winner the only Derby horse other than Big Brown who will continue on to Baltimore, Md. Trained by co-owner Louis Roussel, the bay colt will be ridden once again by E.T. Baird and is expected to ship into Pimlico on Saturday morning.

There are numerous reasons behind the colorful team’s decision to take another try at Big Brown, including one that is purely sentimental. Recapturetheglory is named after Roussell and Lamarque’s 1988 Preakness winner Risen Star, who came into the race off of a third-place finish to the filly Winning Colors in the Derby and followed his Preakness victory with a win in the prestigious Belmont Stakes three weeks later.

Recapturetheglory is a speed horse that will appreciate the speed-favoring surface at Pimlico. A much smaller field in the Preakness means that the colt won’t have to contend with a starting position (18) that forced him to race wide throughout in the Derby and contributed to his 11 length defeat.

One of the biggest factors affecting the colt’s Derby performance was his prerace antics in the infamous Churchill Downs paddock, where he lost his composure before dislodging his rider on the way to the track. Any chance he had at testing Big Brown in the Derby was probably left in the paddock. The Preakness field will be saddled on the turf course at Pimlico far from the crowd that excited the high-strung colt at Churchill.

With all of these things considered, Recapturetheglory has every right to run an improved race in Baltimore, but it is unlikely that he will be able to overcome his most formidable challenge, a potential Triple Crown winner named Big Brown.

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