ARCADIA — Doug O’Neill was in the winner’s circle again on a Triple Crown race day. That it wasn’t the Preakness winner’s circle, or even the Pimlico winner’s circle, seemed not to bother him at all. O’Neill enjoyed the victory by his filly Miss Lizzy and jockey Antonio Fresu in the $100,000 Mizdirection Stakes, a sprint down the hillside turf course, in front of a Preakness day crowd Saturday at Santa Anita.
The trainer best known for winning the Kentucky Derby and Preakness with I’ll Have Another in 2012, and a second Derby with Nyquist in 2016, also seemed to enjoy watching the Preakness on TV and seeing D. Wayne Lukas-trained Seize the Grey score an upset. “It’s fun to watch,” O’Neill said.
“More fun to be there, but it’s a lot of fun to watch.” O’Neill took the Preakness result as “validation” for his lightly raced colt Vlahos, who finished a close third to Seize the Grey in the Pat Day Mile at Churchill Downs on Kentucky Derby day. At age 55, O’Neill also was pleased to see Lukas win his seventh Preakness at 88.
“It’s the beauty of being a trainer,” O’Neill said. “We can do it ’til ..
. ’til we can’t.” O’Neill, leading trainer at the Santa Anita Classic Meet that ran from December to April, and 18th in the nation in purse earnings with $2.
4 million in 2024, won his barn’s fifth stakes of the year when Miss Lizzy won the first of her career. Four-year-old Miss Lizzy rallied from last in the field of eight in the .