Collected, Stradivari and Uncle Lino work for Preakness

Edited Press Release

Collected, Stradivari and Uncle Lino – a trio of new faces to the Triple Crown campaign expected to start in Saturday’s $1.5 million Preakness (G1) – had their final serious tune-ups Friday morning for the second jewel of the Triple Crown.

Collected worked seven furlongs in 1:24.80 over Churchill Downs’ good main track. Ridden by Miguel Mena, the chestnut son of City Zip broke off at the five-eighths pole and produced fractions of :23.80, :35.80, :47.80, 1:00, 1:12.60 and 1:24.80.

The Lexington (G3) romper galloped out a mile in 1:38.60.

“I’d say we are ready. We’re good to go,” said Jim Barnes, assistant to six-time Preakness winner Bob Baffert. “Bob wanted a good seven-eighths and out-a-mile, and he did it pretty handily.”

Collected is scheduled to fly to Baltimore on Tuesday.

Stradivari, who is scheduled to make his stakes debut in the Preakness, breezed five furlongs in :59.60 over the fast training track at Belmont Park.

“He worked very well. I’m very pleased with the way he went,” trainer Todd Pletcher said. “He’s had three very good breezes since his allowance win and right now we’re still considering the Preakness.”

The three-year-old son of Medaglia d’Oro broke his maiden at Gulfstream Park by 11 1/4 lengths in his second career start on December 5 before returning off a four-month layoff to handily vanquish first-level allowance runners by 14 1/2 lengths on April 17 at Keeneland.

“He’s a horse that we’ve thought a lot of for quite a while, so it was sort of in the back of our minds leading up to the allowance race that hopefully bigger things were to come,” Pletcher said. “We were expecting a good effort but that even exceeded our expectations. Once he did that and came out of it well the Preakness became a consideration.”

Uncle Lino, who set a track record of 1:40.82 for 1 1/16 miles at Los Alamitos while winning the April 30 California Chrome S., breezed five furlongs at Santa Anita in 1:00.80 Friday morning.

“It’s exactly what I wanted,” trainer Gary Sherlock said. “I wanted between a minute and 1:01. It’s good. He leaves Tuesday (for Maryland).”

Santa Anita clocker Dane Nelson had fractional times for Uncle Lino of 24.20, 37 flat and 48.80, with a six furlong gallop out clocking of 1:14.20.

A bay son of Uncle Mo, Uncle Lino previously finished third behind Exaggerator in the Santa Anita Derby (G1).

Collected photo courtesy of Keeneland/Coady Photography