Which Kentucky – The 2026 Preakness Stakes at Laurel, Maryland, arrives with warmer, humid conditions and a possible late thunderstorm. Golden Tempo, the Kentucky Derby winner, won’t run, leaving just three Derby horses among the 14 entered for the May 16 race.
Warm and humid weather is expected to set the tone for the 2026 Preakness Stakes this weekend at Laurel, Maryland. The race is scheduled for May 16, the second event of the Triple Crown. Conditions are expected to be warmer with humidity, and there could be a spotty thunderstorm after the race.
Golden Tempo won the Kentucky Derby. and the question of whether he would carry that momentum into the Preakness has already been answered.. He will not be at the Preakness.. This decision continues a familiar pattern: it is the second straight year and the third time in five years that the Derby winner has chosen not to compete in the Preakness despite being healthy.. Trainer Cherie DeVaux made the call quickly after Golden Tempo’s dramatic last-to-first win on May 2.
“Golden gave us the race of a lifetime,” DeVaux said in a statement. “We believe the best decision for him moving forward is to give him a little more time following such a tremendous effort.”
Instead, DeVaux and Golden Tempo are focused on the June 6 Belmont Stakes.
The decision has echoed a shift that began after a long-standing tradition kept the Triple Crown path intact.. From 1997 to 2018, every Kentucky Derby winner ran the Preakness, maintaining the streak of entries that kept the series connected.. That streak ended with Country House. who won the Derby on the disqualification of Maximum Security. and was later scratched from the Preakness.. Since then. the sport has wrestled with the question of how to handle timing and expectations when Derby winners don’t move on.
Maryland’s racing leaders have considered moving the Preakness one week later—from the third Saturday in May to the fourth—but no change has been made.
Of the 14 horses entered for the Preakness Stakes at Laurel Park on May 16, just three made the trip from Churchill Downs, and none of them won the Kentucky Derby. One of those returnees is drawing particular attention because the colt nearly flipped the script in the Derby.
Ocelli (Post 2, 6-1)
Ocelli finished third at 70-1 odds on May 2. and the finish gave trainer Whit Beckman and jockey Tyler Gaffalione a surprise ticket to Laurel Park.. He was the lone maiden in the Derby field and remains a maiden heading into Saturday.. “Nobody expected him to be here,” the setup heading into the Preakness reflects.
Incredibolt (Post 12, 5-1)
Incredibolt is the morning-line co-favorite among the Derby returnees.. He finished sixth at Churchill Downs, and trainer Riley Mott moved quickly to point him to Laurel Park.. Jockey Jaime Torres won the 2024 Preakness aboard Seize the Grey, adding another familiar thread for the connections around this race.. The belief here is that the 1 3/16-mile distance better suits Incredibolt than the Derby’s mile and a quarter.
Robusta (Post 4, 30-1)
Robusta completes the Derby trio as the longest shot in the group coming back. He finished 14th of the 14 in the Derby. With any horse returning quickly after a tough race, the question becomes how much the Derby took out of him. At 30-1, the market appears to have answered that concern.
The pattern that started to break after earlier decades is now showing itself again: Golden Tempo’s decision follows the same timeline logic as other Derby winners who sat out the Preakness. leaving only three Derby starters in a 14-horse field while Maryland weighs a one-week schedule shift that still hasn’t arrived.
2026 Preakness Stakes Golden Tempo Kentucky Derby Laurel Park Ocelli Incredibolt Robusta