Napoleon Solo wins Preakness at Laurel Park, ends year’s Triple Crown hopes

Napoleon Solo turned the 151st Preakness Stakes into a reminder that elite racing can survive change without losing its edge. The New Jersey colt won by 1 1/4 lengths over Iron Honor at Laurel Park, where the race was staged for the first time because Pimlico Race Course is under reconstruction. With Golden Tempo, the Kentucky Derby winner, not in the field, no Triple Crown bid survived the weekend.

The victory came in a 14-horse field, the largest Preakness lineup in 15 years, and Napoleon Solo made the most of a race that still carried the sport’s highest stakes even in an unfamiliar setting. Ridden by Paco Lopez and trained by Chad Summers, Napoleon Solo broke through after a pair of fifth-place finishes and collected his first win of the year. He entered as a 7-1 or 10-1 betting choice, depending on the pre-race board, while Iron Honor was the morning-line favorite.

The Preakness has long been tied to Pimlico and the noise of Baltimore’s spring racing scene, but Laurel Park offered a different picture: a more subdued crowd, a less boisterous infield and a venue shift that underscored how racing’s top events are being asked to balance tradition with practical reality. Pimlico had hosted the race for 108 consecutive years before the temporary move. At Laurel, the purse still signaled major-money status, with the 2026 Preakness carrying a $2 million total purse and $1.2 million going to the winner’s connections.

Napoleon Solo’s connections had viewed him as a speed horse capable of controlling the early tempo, and that projection fit the way the race unfolded. He arrived at Laurel Park on May 10 to prepare, then delivered when the gate opened Saturday at 7:01 p.m. ET. The pace pressure never erased his finishing kick, and he held Iron Honor off down the stretch to secure the classic victory. Earlier in his career, Napoleon Solo had won the Grade 1 Champagne Stakes as a 2-year-old, a sign of the class that resurfaced at Laurel just when the Preakness needed a new chapter.