Chad Brown: Blazing Sevens ‘As Good As I’ve Ever Seen Him’ | 2023 Preakness Stakes News

If all goes well on Saturday – and trainer Chad Brown expects it to – Rodeo Creek Racing’s Blazing Sevens will be bound for the 148th running of the Preakness Stakes (G1) May 20 at Pimlico Race Course.

Blazing Sevens, a son of Good Magic, is scheduled to have his final pre-Preakness workout at Belmont Park on Saturday.

“If he comes out of the work good, we’ll go down to Pimlico either Sunday or Monday,” Brown said Tuesday morning after training horses at the Oklahoma Training Track in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. 

Last Saturday, Blazing Sevens worked five furlongs at Belmont in 1:00.99. That was his third work since his last start, a third-place finish in the Blue Grass (G1) at Keeneland on April 21. After that race, Brown huddled with John and Carla Capek of Rodeo Creek Racing, and it was decided to skip the Kentucky Derby – even though the horse had enough qualifying points – and wait for the Preakness.

Brown has used that formula before and has ended up in the Preakness winner’s circle. Last year, Early Voting did not run in the Derby and then won the Preakness. Same thing in 2017 when Cloud Computing followed that path. 

The Preakness was the fourth career start for Early Voting and Cloud Computing. It will be the seventh for Blazing Sevens, who captured the Champagne (G1) during the Belmont meet at Aqueduct last year.

“(Blazing Sevens) is coming into the race fresh,” Brown said. “He is coming in with a full tank of gas. Off his most recent work I see him moving forward off the Blue Grass. The horse is as good as I have ever seen him. I needed to see the horse really move forward and to see him at his very best. That is what I am seeing.”

Brown said he hopes to have a jockey named to ride Blazing Sevens in the Preakness in the next 48 hours.  He was ridden in the Blue Grass by Irad Ortiz Jr.