Iron Honor drops blinkers for Preakness, aims to settle early

Iron Honor will try the biggest race of his career with a different look and a different assignment: settle down early, then finish the job. Chad Brown is taking the blinkers off the Gotham winner for the first time for the 151st Preakness Stakes, a 1 3/16-mile test set for Saturday at Laurel Park while Pimlico Race Course is under reconstruction.

The change is more than cosmetic. Brown wants Iron Honor to stop pressing so hard from the break and to track horses instead of dueling from the start. That matters for a colt who has shown speed in every start, won his debut, then captured the Grade 3 Gotham at Aqueduct by a length as the 4-5 favorite despite getting through traffic and still finishing strongly enough to remain unbeaten.

The Wood Memorial offered the counterpoint. Sent off as the favorite and breaking from post 12, Iron Honor finished seventh after a troubled trip that included brushing with another horse into the first turn and never really settling. Brown had already pointed him to the Preakness rather than the Kentucky Derby, and that Wood effort sharpened the case for a different approach. Over a mile and three sixteenths, efficiency matters as much as talent, and an eager horse can spend the race before the real running begins.

Iron Honor’s pedigree fits the class Brown is trying to unlock. He is a son of Nyquist, the 2016 Kentucky Derby winner, and out of the Blame mare Orencia. Brown, who has already won the Preakness with Cloud Computing in 2017 and Early Voting in 2022, is betting that the blinkers-off move will help the colt conserve enough energy to finish the way his pedigree suggests he can.

The setup around him adds another layer. The Preakness is limited to 14 starters, post positions were drawn Monday, May 11, and the pace picture could change quickly if some of the expected speed is absent. In that scenario, Iron Honor does not need to make the lead. He needs to leave the gate cleanly, relax through the opening half-mile, and stay close enough to strike when the race begins in earnest. If he does, Brown’s adjustment could turn a hot, aggressive colt into a live late threat in Baltimore.