6YO Veteran Dazzles Preakness Day Crowd with Late Surge
BALTIMORE – Qatar Racing, Marc Detampel and Elizabeth Merryman’s Witty, a multiple stakes winner on grass and dirt, weaved his way through traffic down the stretch and opened up once clear to a 3 ¼-length last-to-first victory in Saturday’s $125,000 Jim McKay Turf Sprint at Pimlico Race Course.
The 20th running of the McKay, a five-furlong dash for 3-year-olds and up, was the fifth of 10 stakes, five graded, worth $3.3 million in purses on a blockbuster 14-race program headlined by the historic 150th Preakness Stakes (G1), Middle Jewel of the Triple Crown.
Witty ($7.80) won for the 10th time in 31 lifetime starts and second in three tries at Pimlico including the 2023 Ben’s Cat, named for the late Mid-Atlantic fan favorite who also dazzled racegoers with his late-running heroics. Now 6, Witty ran second, beaten 1 ½ lengths, in last year’s Jim McKay.
Witty’s victory came on Merryman’s 61st birthday.
As is his style, Witty was unhurried in the early going trailing his six rivals as 21-1 longshot Honeyquist rocketed through an opening quarter-mile in 21.91 seconds over a turf course rated good. Coppola, the 2-1 favorite, pressed Honeyquist early before going a half in 46.47 to assume the lead.
Meanwhile, Witty was beginning to uncork his late run under Prat, who faced a wall of horses approaching the eighth pole. He was able to guide Witty between No Nay Hudson on his inside and Mattingly to his right for running room and rocketed home to cross the wire in 59.61 seconds.
No Nay Hudson got up for second, a neck ahead of Determined Kingdom. Coppola, Honeyquist, Mattingly and Fore Harp completed the order of finish. Boat’s a Rockin and Duncan Idaho were scratched.
Bred in Pennsylvania by Merryman, who also trains the horse, Witty opened his season with a 1 ¾-length loss to Fore Harp in the King T. Leatherbury – named for the Hall of Fame breeder, owner and trainer of Ben’s Cat – April 19 at Laurel Park. Previous turf stakes wins came in the 2024 Leatherbury, and 2023 Maryland Million Turf Sprint and Ben’s Cat. Second in last summer’s Highlander (G2) at Woodbine, Witty also owns dirt stakes wins in the 2021 Pennsylvania Nursery and 2022 Spectacular Bid and Stanton.
Witty is out of the same mare as the great turf sprint mare and 2022 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint (G1) winner Caravel, whom Sheikh Fahad’s Qatar Racing and Marc Detampel bought from Merryman. Qatar Racing bought into Witty on Preakness evening a year ago, after Witty finished second in the Jim McKay. Detampel, a frequent partner with Qatar Racing in horses, bought in soon after.
The Jim McKay Turf Sprint pays homage to the late Hall of Fame broadcaster and Philadelphia native who considered Baltimore his home. McKay first gained notoriety as host of ABC’s ‘Wide World of Sports’ in 1961 and then wide acclaim as voice of the Olympics, winning 13 Emmy Awards and the Eclipse Award of Merit. He was instrumental in conceiving and launching the groundbreaking Maryland Million in 1986 and passed away in 2008 at 86.
$125,000 Jim McKay Turf Sprint Quotes
Winning Trainer Elizabeth Merryman (Witty) – “That’s him. He always comes from way off the pace. There was a ton of speed in the race, so I expected him to be way behind. You never know, it was a long ways back. Like Flavien (Prat) said, turning for home he thought he’d get a piece of it and all of a sudden he was four in front. I like that part!”
(On winning on the Preakness card) “Such family history here, my parents, all the hard work.”
(On the sale of part interest in Witty) “We were at dinner in the Mexican restaurant in the Four Seasons. And Sheikh Fahad said, ‘How about you sell me half?’ I was like, ‘Nah … all right.’ A few days later Marc jumped in, too. It was kind of like carrying on the Caravel situation.”
Winning Jockey Flavien Prat (Witty) — “That race set up perfect. They kind of ran away from me at first, then in the turn, he started making up a bit of ground. I thought maybe I’m gonna get a piece of it then all of a sudden, I asked him for run and he took off. He kept coming as the leaders stopped a bit at the eighth-pole and we kept going.”