Blazing Sevens, Early Voting, Cloud Computing Same But Different | 2023 Preakness Stakes News

Of course, the question was going to come, because trainer Chad Brown has used the same formula for success in the past – the Preakness Stakes (G1) – on the biggest day of racing in Maryland.

Preakness Stakes 2023 Betting Bible

Get the Racing Dudes’ 2023 Preakness Stakes Betting Bible, featuring the EXACT race-by-race wagering plans for Aaron Halterman and Jared Welch, the two founders of RacingDudes.com. See how they’re playing every race on on May 20, 2023 at Pimlico!

FREE DOWNLOAD NOW

Brown won the Preakness in 2017 with a horse named Cloud Computing and again last year with Early Voting. Can he do it again on Saturday when he saddles Blazing Sevens in the eight-horse, 1 3/16-mile Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course?

The big similarity with all three is this: Brown decided not to run any of them in the Kentucky Derby (G1), even though they all had enough qualifying points to get into the field. Instead, he waited for the Middle Jewel of the Triple Crown.

He has been successful with that strategy twice. He is hoping it will work again Saturday. Blazing Sevens, owned by John and Carla Capek’s Rodeo Racing LLC, is the 6-1 fourth choice on the Preakness morning line.

The biggest difference between Blazing Sevens and the pair of Brown’s Preakness winners is experience. Blazing Sevens, a son of Good Magic, will be making his seventh career start on Saturday.

The Preakness was the fourth career start for both Early Voting and Cloud Computing.

“The fact that we skipped the Derby, with the points, giving (Blazing Sevens) six weeks rest makes him similar to the other two,” Brown said. “This horse got started earlier. He won the Champagne (G1). They are really different horses to compare.”

Blazing Sevens had 46 qualifying points and was solidly in the Derby field before Brown pulled the plug.

“It’s one of the hardest decisions as a thoroughbred horse trainer to sit out the Kentucky Derby when you have the points,” Brown said. 

Blazing Sevens last ran in the April 8 Blue Grass (G1) at Keeneland and finished third. Equipped with blinkers for the first time, it was a major improvement over his first start in 2023 when he did not run at all in an eighth-place finish in the Fountain of Youth (G2) at Gulfstream on March 4.

“His Blue Grass was very good, a very good step in the right direction,” Brown said. “But it wasn’t quite good enough to set him up to run the race of his life in the Derby, which is what you need to do. I didn’t feel he would be ready in four weeks to do that. If you choose to take a shot and go for a home run and miss, not only do you lose the race, you are probably out of the other Triple Crown races, and it just sends you so far backward if you are wrong. I did not want to be wrong.”

Blazing Sevens, who is under the watch of Brown’s assistant Jose Hernandez at Pimlico, galloped about 1 ¼ miles for the third straight morning with exercise rider Peer Levia. They went to the track at 6:30 a.m.