Topic: Jose Ortiz

Some feisty American 3-year-olds upheld national honor against foreign invaders in the big New York turf races this weekend but the competition will get tougher as the series heads to Saratoga.

With three winners from the Triple Crown series and several other top 3-year-olds waiting in the wings, the rest of the season looks like a battle for supremacy.

While Early Voting stole the weekend limelight with his Preakness Stakes win, there was plenty of other stardom on display in weekend horse racing, including the 3-year-old filly Stars on Earth in the Japanese Oaks.

Trainer Chad Brown and Owner Seth Klarman developed the perfect plan for Early Voting to win the Preakness Stakes and the colt and jockey Jose Ortiz executed it perfectly.

Kentucky Derby runner-up Epicenter has been installed as favorite in a field of nine for Saturday's Preakness Stakes, second jewel of the Triple Crown, while Derby winner Rich Strike is sitting out.

Japan's pure-white filly Sodashi earned a chance to run in November's Breeders' Cup at Keeneland, as three winners from last year returned in weekend action.

The shock of the second-biggest upset in Kentucky Derby history distracted attention from a lot of other top weekend horse racing -- including a race in Japan that almost produced an upset three times bigger. All of that

One of the downsides of big races like the Kentucky Derby is they tend to eclipse some other top-shelf racing going on around them, including the Kentucky Oaks, the Friday feature that shapes up as a classic.

This is the 20-horse field for the 2022 Kentucky Derby. The 148th running of the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve takes place Saturday at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky.

Stilleto Boy, Brickyard Ride, Beyond Brilliant and War Like Goddess turned in sparkling performances in weekend horse racing as the Kentucky Derby contenders put in their final workouts for Saturday's big race.