Fort Washington seeks rare Dinner Party Stakes repeat at Preakness undercard

Fort Washington will try to do what no horse has done in a century and change the conversation from nostalgia to legitimacy. The 7-year-old gelding returns for the $250,000 Dinner Party Stakes on May 16 at Laurel Park with a chance to become only the second back-to-back winner in the race’s 125-year history, matching Sarazan’s 1925-26 run.

That is the real question hanging over the Preakness undercard turf feature: is Fort Washington still the horse who won this race by a length last year, or is Magic Cap Stables asking him to find a level he no longer owns? He has been off the board in three straight graded stakes, so this is not a routine title defense. It is a test of current form against past class, and the difference matters because a successful repeat would signal that the older turf division still has to go through him.

The conditions should sharpen the debate. The race will be run at 1 1/8 miles on turf, carries a Grade 3 label, and is expected to draw a field of seven. Dresden Row, a 7-5 morning-line favorite, looms as the main threat after a 2 3/4-length Keeneland allowance win on April 8 in 1:42.17 for 1 1/16 miles. That came in his first start since taking the HPIbet Autumn Stakes at Woodbine, and it also marked his first U.S. graded-stakes step for Todd Pletcher.

Fort Washington’s case is built on something stronger than sentiment. He won the 2025 Dinner Party at Pimlico, then added the Canadian Turf Stakes and the Arlington Million in a banner season that turned him into a legitimate force rather than a one-race wonder. The son of War Front out of Azaelia, by Turtle Bowl, was purchased by Magic Cap Stables for $260,000 at the 2023 Fasig-Tipton July Horses of Racing Age Sale, and the return on that investment has already included a millionaire’s profile and major-stakes hardware. His recent half-mile workout in :48.10 at Belmont Park suggests Shug McGaughey still has enough from him to make this more than a ceremonial run.

Sarazan is the only confirmed repeat winner of the Dinner Party, and he did it in an era when 27 wins in 55 starts was enough to carry him into the Hall of Fame in 1957. That history gives Fort Washington’s assignment extra weight. The Dinner Party is the oldest stakes race in Maryland and the Mid-Atlantic, and one of the oldest graded stakes in the country. If Fort Washington delivers again, it will not just be another payday for Magic Cap Stables. It will be a statement that the old horse still has enough left to own this turf division one more time.