Thread: Sporting News

Preakness starts in a couple hours.

2023 Preakness Stakes post positions, odds

No. 1 post: National Treasure, 5-2
No. 2 post: Chase the Chaos, 7-1
No. 3 post: Mage, 2-1
No. 4 post: Coffeewithchris, 8-1
No. 5 post: Red Route One, 6-1
No. 6 post: Perform, 7-1
No. 7 post: Blazing Sevens, 4-1

National Treasure wins 148^th Preakness

With National Treasure’s unoffficial victory, Baffert became the winningest Preakness trainer in history, breaking a tie with 19th-century trainer R. Wyndham Walden. He last won the race in 2018 with Triple Crown winner Justify.

Despite his track record in Baltimore, Baffert did not exactly gush over National Treasure’s chances, saying the colt “looked fine” the morning before the race.

“Is he the caliber of Mage?” Baffert said, drawing a comparison to the Kentucky Derby winner and Preakness favorite. “I don’t know. I think Mage is a good horse. Anytime you have a horse that has only had a few outs and wins the Kentucky Derby, that is pretty impressive.”

National Treasure, ridden by Baffert’s go-to big-race jockey John Velazquez, had won just once in five previous starts, with the trainer describing him as a potential late bloomer comfortable with the 1 3/16-mile distance of the Preakness.

With top trainers and owners reluctant to run their most talented 3-year-olds on just two weeks’ rest, the Preakness has largely become a target for horses that do not earn enough qualifying points to enter the Derby. That trend has led to calls for a more extended Triple Crown calendar to line up with modern training habits, but many traditionalists within the sport prefer to keep the three-race series as is.

Baffert, who won Triple Crowns with American Pharoah in 2015 and Justify, is among those who do not want to see a change. “No. I think it would lose its tradition,” he said. “It’s the last that we have. It’s important.”

The race.......

yesterday at the PGA Championship

What a weekend at the PGA Championship

Purse: $15,000,000

Brooks Koepka won the PGA in 10 seconds — but it hurt to get there

That’s all it took for Brooks Koepka to strike the finishing blow at the PGA Championship.

As he played the 16th hole on Sunday, Koepka had distanced himself from the rest of a stacked field to the point where only one contender remained. He’d begun the day a shot ahead of a rabid chase pack; now only Viktor Hovland remained, 8 under par to Koepka’s 9.

Both players blocked their tee shots right of the fairway but Koepka’s just carried the bunker and nestled into the rough. Hovland’s settled in the bunker, where he drew an awkward lie: the ball was below his feet and a high bunker lip directly in his way. Things went sideways from there; his 9-iron never got close to clearing and line-drived into the face of the bunker instead. The ball embedded in the grass wall, cruelly staring back at him, his tournament hopes suddenly buried half underground.

While Hovland spent the next several minutes trying to sort out how to take a drop — he was entitled to relief for a plugged lie but it was tough to figure out where that relief would be — Koepka stood motionless up ahead, occasionally glancing back in his direction but mostly staring off into the distance. Eventually they sorted through it, Hovland dropped into a bad lie in the rough and was forced to chop out sideways into the fairway.

Koepka’s caddie Ricky Elliott had taken the wedge from his hands a few minutes into Hovland’s ruling, just to make sure his guy could reset. Now he gave it back. And so, just 10 seconds after Hovland’s ball came trickling to a stop, Koepka sent his soaring toward the green. It happened so fast the crowd was caught by surprise. It happened so fast the cameras hadn’t gotten into position. It happened so fast it almost felt dismissive, like part of Koepka was disappointed the competition was over with two and a half holes still to play.