Plenty of Heartbreak Over Barbaro for Fans at Pimlico

By George Solomon and John Scheinman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, May 21, 2006

BALTIMORE, May 20 -- Frank Nugent never misses the Preakness. Just as he has every year since 1972, he drove down from Drexel Hills, Pa.

But Saturday, he said, was the worst. The crowd favorite and Kentucky Derby winner, Barbaro, broke his right rear ankle and a lot of hearts.

"I couldn't believe it," Nugent said. "Such a powerful animal. When it happened, I stopped watching the race and put my eyes on Barbaro. He looked like a sure Triple Crown winner before the race."

Steven King, an usher in the stands, said he saw the horse wobble and "that's when I knew something was wrong."

Fans gathered near Barbaro's stall and watched as trainer Michael Matz left to meet the horse at an equine hospital in Pennsylvania. "We're praying for you, Michael," several shouted.

Napravnik Impresses

For 18-year-old apprentice jockey Anna Rose Napravnik, Preakness Day marked her coming-out party on the national stage. If the racing world wasn't aware of the savant tearing up the Maryland racing circuit before Saturday, it is now.

Napravnik, who lives in Laurel, has towered over the Pimlico jockey standings this spring, winning with 28 percent of her mounts. She came right out of the gate Saturday with some of the finest riders in the world in town for the rich Preakness card, and won the first race of the day on sprinter Roth Ticket for trainer Howard Wolfendale.

Four races later she struck again, picking up the fifth stakes win of her career, guiding 7-1 shot My Lord from last to first in the $100,000 Baltimore Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint.

The ride was typical of Napravnik, intuitive and authoritative. My Lord appeared outrun early in the five-furlong race as the leaders sped through an opening half-mile in 45.24 seconds. By the time they reached the turn, however, the 7-year-old gelding trained by Ann Merryman gathered momentum, and Napravnik perfectly timed her stretch drive to pass heavy favorite Southern Missile inside the eighth pole and win by three-quarters of a length.

With her entire family in attendance, Napravnik was elated.

"It feels terrific winning on Preakness Day," she said. "I knew my agent would get me on a million horses today, but I didn't realize they'd be this live."

Napravnik rode in 11 of the 13 races on the card, sitting out the Preakness and the Hirsch Jacobs. She wasn't through after the stakes victory. Riding Celtic Innis in the Grade III $200,000 Maryland Breeders' Cup Sprint Handicap, Napravnik stalked the pace set by Kazoo and then pounced from the outside on the turn. She hemmed the charging Gaff inside and missed beating favorite Friendly Island by three-quarters of a length.

Celtic Innis was 25-1.

"I don't think there's been an [apprentice] rider named on 11 horses ever on Preakness Day, and not a girl [apprentice] named on 11," said Napravnik's agent, John Faltynski. "To finish second for $200,000 for owners who need the money is terrific."

Schaeffer Handicap

Trainer Barclay Tagg scratched his 2003 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Funny Cide out of the Grade I Pimlico Special on Friday, hoping to have an easier time of it in the $100,000 William Donald Schaefer Handicap. The other horses in the field, however, didn't cooperate.

After tracking a moderate pace, Funny Cide failed to rally and finished third behind Master Command, who won the 1 1/8 -mile dirt race in 1 minutes 49.42 seconds.

"He pulled me up in behind them, and I didn't have a place to go down the backstretch when he had a lot of run," said Richard Migliore, Funny Cide's jockey. "I think he got a little discouraged."

Grade III Hirsch Jacobs

One of the most impressive runners on the Preakness cards was the lightly raced Songster, who came south from his base at Belmont Park and crushed five other 3-year-old sprinters by 10 lengths in the six-furlong $100,000 Hirsch Jacobs.

Songster ran in two of the fastest sprints run this winter at Gulfstream Park to begin his career, then was beaten by nine lengths in his most recent start, the Grade III Bay Shore Stakes at Aqueduct by Bob Baffert's Too Much Bling.

Under jockey Edgar Prado, Songster flashed his high speed in the Hirsch Jacobs, running the first half-mile in 45.88 seconds and then easily pulling away in the stretch to win in 1:09.72.