Swiss Skydiver proves she's the one; filly wins 145th Preakness Stakes

BALTIMORE — Trainer Kenny McPeek wasn’t sure he wanted to put Swiss Skydiver in the Preakness Stakes.

If there had been a Grade 1 stakes for 3-year-old fillies at the same juncture of the calendar, he probably would not have.

But McPeek has ducked no challenges this year, racing Swiss Skydiver in Florida, Louisiana, California, Arkansas, Kentucky and New York. So as long as she kept cleaning out her feed tub and showing up eager to train, why not pit her against a field of colts led by Kentucky Derby champion Authentic?

The relentless chestnut rewarded her trainer’s bold choice Saturday when she became the first filly since 2009 and only the second since 1924 to win the Preakness.

“Just incredible,” McPeek said after the race. “Horses tell you they’re doing good. She always tells us she’s doing good. I know there were those naysayers. ‘Oh, why would you do that? That’s the worst thing you can do.’ But she’s just a real bull. She loves what she does every day.”

Swiss Skydiver outlasted Authentic by a neck in a stirring duel to the finish. They were the two most accomplished runners in the 11-horse field, and Authentic went off as a 3-2 favorite. The Bob Baffert-trained colt did not start as sharply as he did in the Derby. Once Swiss Skydiver, who went off as an 11-1 choice, nudged ahead with an inside move at about the 3/4-mile mark, she never allowed Authentic to pass as they pulled away from the rest of the field. Jockey Robby Albarado steered her expertly along the rail, taking advantage of Authentic’s tendency to run wider.

“He had every chance to get by her,” Baffert said. “He got beat. He just couldn’t get by her. She dug in. She’s tough.”

He was disappointed that his horse did not move immediately to the front after breaking cleanly. “We had to get the lead,” Baffert said after Swiss Skydiver denied him a record-breaking eighth Preakness victory. “He runs better on the lead. He likes to be out there running fast. … That’s how he won the Derby, get him running. But (jockey John Velazquez) said when he went to pick it up, he didn’t have it today.”

Velazquez said he tried to coax a move from the Derby champ on the backstretch “but he just stood there and Swiss Skydiver came to him. I tried to get him rolling again, but he just stayed with that other horse from the half-mile pole to the wire.”

The Preakness victory was a second for the 47-year-old Albarado, who also won aboard Curlin in 2007. He jumped in for Tyler Gaffalione, who was committed to a different track for the weekend. Albarado, who hadn’t won a Grade 1 stakes since 2017, was not surprised Swiss Skydiver held off Authentic.

“Obviously, he was a Derby champ, so you’ve got to give him respect,” he said. “But she was giving all indications that she was determined to stay in front and not let him pass her.”

McPeek said he was “a little worried. When they got to about the 1/16 pole, it looked like Authentic got his head in front a little bit, and then she fought right back.”

Her winning time of 1 minute, 53.28 seconds was the second fastest in Preakness history behind Secretariat in 1973.

Swiss Skydiver’s surprise triumph brought an indelible twist to the strangest Preakness in memory. Originally scheduled for May 16, the race was run 4 1/2 months late because of the coronavirus pandemic. Other than a few horse owners in trackside tents, there were no spectators at Pimlico Race Course to watch the filly make history. An event defined by its roiling party crowd of more than 100,000 went largely silent. To make matters weirder, the Preakness served as the third leg of a scrambled Triple Crown series that began with the June 20 Belmont Stakes.

This was not the way anyone wanted it in the same year the state legislature and The Stronach Group agreed on a plan to rehabilitate Pimlico and maintain it as the long-term home of the Preakness.

But the circumstances did little to take the shine off McPeek’s day as he celebrated the nine-race, cross-country run his filly has pulled off in 2020. She gave him his first victory in the Triple Crown series since the 2002 Belmont Stakes.

“I’ve had a lot of special horses in my career, but she’s definitely right there at the top right now and I don’t see a long time until another one does something like that to me,” McPeek said.

Swiss Skydiver, named by owner Peter Callahan after he glimpsed a picture of his granddaughter parachuting over the Swiss Alps, picked up a legacy of filly greatness established by Rachel Alexandra, who won the 2009 Preakness on her way to American Horse of the Year honors.

McPeek said Swiss Skydiver should receive similar consideration now that she’s won five graded stakes and beaten some of the best colts in her 3-year-old class. She turned the tables on Art Collector, who beat her by 3 1/2 lengths in the July 11 Blue Grass Stakes but finished fourth as the 2-1 second choice in the Preakness.

“I mean, anybody that says that she hasn’t entertained this country this year any more than any other horse, I mean they weren’t watching because she was doing it everywhere,” McPeek said, noting his filly has run in every month but April. She’ll try to cap her year next month in either the Breeders’ Cup Distaff or the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

The last filly to run in the Preakness, Ria Antonia in 2014, finished last. Six fillies have won the race, but four of those were between 1903 and 1924.

McPeek waited until last weekend before deciding to enter Swiss Skydiver and acknowledged it was a “tough call.” He said that if Belmont Stakes champion Tiz the Law had joined the field instead of resting for the Breeders’ Cup, he probably would have steered her elsewhere. But he thought the 1 3/16-mile distance of the Preakness would be “ideal for her.”

Swiss Skydiver paid $25.40 on a $2 bet to win, $8.40 on a $2 bet to place and $5.80 on a $2 bet to show. Authentic paid $3.60 and $3.20, and third-place finisher Jesus’ team, a 40-1 long shot, paid $12.20.

With no spectators at Pimlico to bet live, the handle for the day dropped to $51.2 million from a record $99.85 million (for a card with two more races) in 2019.

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