Chip Honcho reunites with Jose Ortiz as Preakness opens wide-open race

Jose Ortiz is back on Chip Honcho, and that reunion feels bigger than nostalgia now that the 151st Preakness Stakes has lost Kentucky Derby winner Golden Tempo to the Belmont Stakes. With the middle jewel opening up May 16 at Laurel Park, Ortiz’s familiarity with Steve Asmussen’s colt could be a real competitive edge, not just a sentimental storyline.

The pair already has a race history that matters. Ortiz rode Chip Honcho when the colt broke his maiden at Churchill Downs after finishing second in his debut at Keeneland last fall, and the horse later added the Gun Runner Stakes at Fair Grounds on Dec. 20 to close his 2-year-old season. Since then, Chip Honcho has kept crossing paths with Golden Tempo in New Orleans, finishing fourth in the Lecomte Stakes, second in the Risen Star Stakes and fifth in the Louisiana Derby. Those results do not guarantee a Preakness reversal, but they do give Ortiz and Asmussen a shared map of where the colt belongs when the pressure rises.

That chemistry matters in a race that now looks far less defined than a normal Triple Crown second leg. Chip Honcho enters with an Equibase line of six starts, two wins, two seconds and $280,475 in earnings, including three spring starts that produced one second and $130,000 before the Preakness. Asmussen, one of the sport’s most successful trainers, has cautioned that old finishes do not run the race, but having Ortiz aboard gives him a rider who already knows how this colt responds in a live setting.

Ortiz arrives with his own momentum. He rode Magnitude to victory in the $12 million Dubai World Cup on March 28, a first Grade 1 win for that horse and another showcase of Ortiz’s range on major stages. Fair Grounds also confirmed that Ortiz repeated as jockey champion for the 2025-26 meet, underlining how central he has become to the Asmussen operation and to New Orleans racing.

The Preakness itself will look different this year. Because Pimlico Race Course is being rebuilt, the race moves to Laurel Park, where attendance is capped at 4,800 and every ticket is sold as part of a two-day package. Maryland officials say the Preakness will return to a rebuilt Pimlico in 2027, a shift that turns this year’s running into both a sporting pivot and a preview of how the state wants to reimagine its racing future.

That backdrop makes Chip Honcho more than a name in the field. He is one of the few runners with a direct line to the Derby winner, a proven rider returning to the saddle, and enough form to suggest this Preakness could reward the right fit as much as raw talent. Calvin Borel was the last jockey to win the first two Triple Crown legs on different horses, in 2009, and Ortiz now has a chance to write his own version of that kind of history.