Concerto Adds to Charm of Preakness

BALTIMORE — As Kentucky Derby winner Silver Charm arrived at Pimlico Race Course this afternoon for the Preakness Stakes, the Triple Crown race added one possible starter and lost another.

Trainer John Tammaro III, revising his comments from Sunday, said he and horse owner George Steinbrenner now plan to try Concerto in the Preakness on May 17. The chestnut colt, stabled at Laurel Park, weakened to ninth in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby after winning his previous five starts.

“We’re looking to find a reason why he ran so poorly,” Tammaro said, “and we can’t.”

As Concerto’s Preakness possibilities were revived, those for Traitor were extinguished. Owner Alfred Vanderbilt said his two-time stakes winner has torn a ligament and might not race again.

Forty-four years since he won the Preakness with Native Dancer, his brilliant gray, Vanderbilt will have no chance to relive the sensation with Traitor. From his home in New York, Vanderbilt said the injury was detected after the colt took a bad step following a gallop at Pimlico. He was unsure whether surgery awaits the colt.

An icon of the distinguished American thoroughbred owner during the golden age of horse racing and a former Pimlico president, Vanderbilt, 84, knows too well the sport’s wild extremes. This latest turn, he said, “has knocked the hell out of me.”

Traitor had established himself as one of the nation’s most talented 2-year-old thoroughbreds last year with a 5 1/2-length victory in the Belmont Futurity and a close second-place finish in the Champagne Stakes. A winner in both his starts this year, he has four victories, a second- and a third-place finish in six races.

The withdrawal of Traitor from Preakness consideration followed by one day the surgery-forced defection of Pulpit. The Blue Grass Stakes winner and Derby morning-line favorite underwent successful arthroscopic surgery Monday for the extraction of a bone chip from his left knee.

Larry Bramlage, the veterinary surgeon who performed the 45-minute procedure, said the chip probably formed as Pulpit began to tire during his fourth-place Derby run. According to Bramlage, Pulpit could resume full training by July.

The three horses who preceded him in the Derby--Silver Charm, Captain Bodgit and Free House--emerged in good health and as of today were Preakness bound. After the three shared a plane ride from Louisville to Baltimore, Captain Bodgit parted company to return to Gary Capuano’s stable at the Bowie Training Center. Silver Charm and Free House rode to Pimlico in a van with four other stakes winners: Pimlico Special contenders Gentlemen, Isitingood and Tejano Run, and Black-Eyed Susan candidate Blushing K.D., winner of last Friday’s Kentucky Oaks.

Trainer Bob Baffert brought Silver Charm to Pimlico 11 days before the Preakness mostly for convenience. He had to get Isitingood here for Saturday’s $600,000 Pimlico Special, and sent Silver Charm along for the ride.

Silver Charm showed slightly more rib than before his Derby victory but wore a dappled gray coat and looked alert as Baffert walked him around the dirt-padded shedrow of the Pimlico stakes barn Tuesday afternoon, then grazed him on a strip of grass nearby.

“I know one thing,” said Baffert, who brought Cavonnier to the 1996 Preakness after a nose-length defeat to Grindstone in the Derby. “I feel a hell of a lot better than I did last year at this time.”

The Derby winner by a head over Captain Bodgit, Silver Charm could take his first leisurely strides at Pimlico this morning but probably won’t work in earnest until early next week, Baffert said.