Joe Anzalone woke up Preakness Stakes Day feeling fresh and inspired, with all the credit to an early morning dream in the midst of some solid REM sleep.
"First one in 100 years. Love it. I dreamt about it last night," Anzalone said later that afternoon deep into the Preakness card at Laurel Park May 16.
The "it" turned out to be a second consecutive victory in the Dinner Party Stakes-G3 with Fort Washington, who used similar tactics this year to land the 9-furlong turf event for older horses.
"I don't normally do that," said Anzalone, a Florida-based pharmaceutical executive who races as Magic Cap Stables. "Usually, I'm dreaming about how something went wrong."
Nothing much went wrong in the $250,000 Dinner Party, which drew a field of seven but scratched down to five when Dresden Row and longshot Thundering came out the day of the race. The 5-2 second choice behind 2-5 favorite Cruise the Nile, Fort Washington found a spot in fourth while a bit wide early under Junior Alvarado. They inched up to third, about 2 lengths behind the dueling Harrow and Cruise the Nile through 6 furlongs in 1:12.53 before making a more serious run around the far turn at about the three-eighths pole.
New Jersey-bred Cruise the Nile made the lead leaving the far turn, but it didn't last long as Fort Washington took over approaching the three-sixteenths pole. He gained from there to win by three-quarters of a length from A Bourbon for Toby with Cruise the Nile another length back in third.
"In my dream of course I didn't know there were going to be so many scratches, but I had him coming from the back of the pack," Anzalone said. "Junior did this last year, positioned him in the middle, made the move around the turn and had enough to last. He did the same thing today. Tremendous."
Anzalone bought Fort Washington as a 4-year-old for $260,000 out of the 2023 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July Horses of Racing Age sale. He's won six times for Magic Cap since, including last year's Arlington Million-G1 at Colonial Downs and two other Grade 3 stakes. Fort Washington improved to 8-3-8 in 32 starts and boosted his earnings to $1,560,291.
The latest win also put Fort Washington in rare company, joining Sarazen (in 1925 and 1926) as the only back-to-back winners of the eighth-oldest stakes race in the United States. Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey, represented at Laurel by his son and assistant Reeve McGaughey, won his seventh Dinner Party (formerly known as the Dixie). McGaughey won it with Lure (1993), Parading (2009), Ironicus (2015), Fire Away (2018) and Never Explain (2023).
"It's pretty special," Alvarado said of the back-to-back wins. "He is a very good horse. Sometimes he wants to make your job a little harder than it should. He likes to lug in sometimes. He did it a little today, but he was manageable. The other times I have not been able to get to the winner's circle, I ended up fighting with him. He's an old pro. He keeps showing up."
A break from spring (training)
Travis Durr settled into his seat at Scottsdale Stadium in Arizona, ready to take in a San Francisco Giants spring training game in late February, when his phone rang.
Chris Gracie, a Virginia-based bloodstock agent, gave Durr a call after watching 4-year-old Preservationist gelding Bring the Smoke blitz maidens in his second start at Laurel Park.
"We need to buy this horse," said Gracie, who does work with Durr and partners in Legion Bloodstock and Legion Racing.
A deal was made to buy Bring the Smoke, an 18¼-length winner going 6 furlongs in the mud Feb. 21, from Team Gaudet and trainer Lacey Gaudet. He shipped out of Laurel to join Whit Beckman's Kentucky operation at Turfway Park.
"That night after he called, after the Giants game, we put something together," said Durr, who operates the Travis Durr Training Center in South Carolina. "Jerry Berry, he went to dinner with us that night and we asked him, 'Hey, we have a horse, do you want to buy in for a leg?' He did, said, 'Sign me up.' Just like that it happened. That's how we roll. Then we added a few more partners. It's awesome."
Bring the Smoke finished second for his new connections -- Legion Racing, Awestrike Racing, Berry Family Racing, GLAM Racing and Clarke Ohrstrom -- in an allowance race at Keeneland seven weeks later. A month after that he landed his first win for the partnership with a determined rally in the $150,000 Maryland Sprint-G3. Under Tyler Gaffalione, Bring the Smoke got up in time to edge Faust and Haileysfirstnotion in the 6-furlong stakes, his second win in four starts.
"We own horses, they own horses . . . he was just a horse we took a shot on," Gracie said. "When he ran back in the 1x allowance and ran similar numbers, we knew we bought the right horse. We'll see where we go from here."
Dial it up
David "Chief" Alcaro likes to be involved.
A commodities trader on the New York Mercantile Exchange, Alcaro also produces award-winning documentary films, is a part owner of an Australian professional women's basketball team, and co-owns and co-hosts a weekly sports radio show in Australia. He's also into Thoroughbred racing, starting as a fan in the late 1990s before taking the plunge as an owner in 2022.
Alcaro bought three yearlings in 2022 at the Keeneland September sale, spending $590,000 for a son of Munnings and for daughters of Munnings and Dialed In. The Munnings gelding Mums Poem finished off the board in his lone start as a 3-year-old. The Runhappy filly, Aunt Yola, won once in 14 starts and earned $107,480. The third yearling, Striker Has Dial, provided much more of a return and did so again in her second attempt in the Skipat Stakes.
Striker Has Dial, racing for Alcaro's Chief Horse Futures, went to the front early and stayed there to win the 6-furlong $125,000 Skipat by 13⁄4 lengths under Ricardo Santana Jr. She improved on a second in last year's Skipat, both with her globetrotting owner in attendance, and made it two stakes in a row going back to the Endine at Delaware Park in September 2025.
"She's been so much fun. I'm so lucky," Alcaro said. "She was the third of three horses I bought. I want to say it was Book Five or Six, way back. I said to my bloodstock agent, Case Clay, when we bought her, of the three that we bought I bet you that she's the best. How unpredictable racing is. And she was the least expensive, too."
Striker Has Dial cost $180,000 -- less than the $210,000 for Aunt Yola and the $200,000 for Mums Poem. The daughter of Dialed In improved to 5-5-2 in 15 starts and boosted her bankroll to $438,572.
"It's just been a dream," Alcaro said. "Unfortunately, the other two didn't do great, but one of them did win a race at Saratoga. But to have this horse, I've been to Philly Park, Delaware Park, Pimlico, here now, a whole tour of the Mid-Atlantic and she's come second or won everywhere."
Trainer Horacio De Paz prepped Striker Has Dial, 3-for-6 last season with two other placings, out of his string at Laurel. She was one of two winners on the weekend, along with maiden American Tapit on Black-Eyed Susan Day, with Low Country Magic finishing second in the Allaire duPont Distaff and What Say Thee fourth in the Dinner Party-G3.
Striker Has Dial improved to 2-for-2 at Laurel. The other win came in her debut as a 3-year-old in early May 2024, a 6-length score going 7 furlongs.
"I told everybody she needed the race and she paid almost $10," said De Paz, the private trainer for Maryland's Sagamore Farm several years ago. "She'd been training really good. She won first time out and I thought she needed that race, too, at seven-eighths. She prepared here. I got her here and she did really well. Low Country Magic, she trains here as well. They always say it's good to have some works over the track wherever you go. They used to say that about Churchill with the Derby, then it went away a little bit. It's working for us right now, so I'm going with it."
Motion doubles on turf
Fair Hill-based trainer Graham Motion won two stakes on Preakness Day, kicking off the double with the well-named Turf Star in the $100,000 James W. Murphy for 3-year-olds on the turf. The Calumet Farm homebred rallied from sixth of seven early to catch My Favorite Bird in the stretch and win by a half-length for jockey Jorge Ruiz. The son of Caravaggio and the Galileo (Ire) mare Starstruck (Ire) added the Murphy to a maiden win at Kentucky Downs and a Grade 2 placing at Keeneland last year in seven starts.
Three races after that win, Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners' Warming pulled a mild upset in the $150,000 Gallorette-G3 for fillies and mares. The daughter of Global Campaign rated sixth of eight early while Ribaltagaia and Austere slugged it out up front in the 11⁄16-mile stakes. Warming tipped out at the top of the stretch, bumped with even later-running Child of the Moon (Fr) and prevailed by a length. John Velazquez rode the winner, a 4-year-old purchased for $100,000 at the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's March sale in 2024. She won for the fourth time, adding a second stakes score to her Autumn Miss-G3 win at Santa Anita last year.
First run in 1952, the Gallorette honors the Maryland-bred great, a handicap champion and national Hall of Famer who won -- among other races -- the Metropolitan, Brooklyn and Whitney handicaps against males -- in the 1940s. Warming has work to do if she's going to match those feats, but she thrilled her owners.
"Any time you can win on a day where there's a classic, especially a race like the Gallorette that has a historic record, it's a great experience for our partners and for us," said Eclipse's Sean Tugel. "That's really what Eclipse is about, bringing people to the game, and any time you can win on the biggest stage, there's no thrill like that."
Warming won her debut in June 2024, but missed almost a year before returning to win twice in 2025. She opened 2026 with a second in a $100,000 handicap at Gulfstream Park in January, then finished third in the Latonia Stakes at Turfway Park in March. Bred in Kentucky by M. Auerbach, she kicked her career earnings to $326,450 and gave Motion his fourth Gallorette after Film Maker (2005), Ultra Brat (2018) and Mean Mary (2021).
NOTES: Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen sent out Obliteration to win the $150,000 Chick Lang Stakes for 3-year-olds to spark his fifth trainer bonus over Preakness Weekend. Asmussen picked up the top prize of $50,000 after running horses in eight stakes, including Preakness-G1 third Chip Honcho. Obliteration gave Asmussen his seventh win in the Chick Lang. The son of Violence defeated Pennsylvania-bred Shane's Wonder by 31⁄2 lengths as the 7-10 favorite in the field of seven. He returned to finish third in the Woody Stephens-G1 at Saratoga on Belmont Stakes day. . . Asmussen's 39 total points edged Motion's 37 in the race for the top trainer bonus. Second place was worth $25,000, with Saffie Joseph Jr. taking $12,000 for third, one point better than Laurel-based Brittany Russell, who scored $7,000. Russell was the leading trainer by points in non-stakes races during the weekend, taking home an additional $25,000 prize . . . Chasing Liberty turned the tables on Outlaw Kid to win the $125,000 Jim McKay Turf Sprint immediately before the Preakness. Second by a neck to Outlaw Kid in the King T. Leatherbury at the same 5½ furlongs on the turf in April, Chasing Liberty won by a nose under Irad Ortiz Jr. for trainer Rob Atras.
Additional reporting by Joe Clancy.
