TRIPLE CROWN RATINGS

REMARKS: Trainer Charlie Whittingham’s Sunday Silence won the Preakness in 1989. Whittingham’s two top 3-year-olds, Excavate and Compelling Sound, are out of the Triple Crown picture, but he still will have a rooting interest in Saturday’s 116th running of the race. Michael Whittingham, his son, and Rodney Rash, his former chief assistant, will be saddling longshots at Pimlico.

Michael Whittingham’s Preakness starter is Whadjathink, a robust-looking colt who has come to Baltimore off two one-mile grass races in California--a fourth-place finish in an allowance at Santa Anita and a victory in the Spotlight Handicap at Hollywood Park on May 4, the day of the Kentucky Derby.

Rash had never saddled a horse in his own name until Honor Grades ran second in the Kentucky Derby Trial at Churchill Downs on April 27. Off that effort, owners Bruce McNall and Wayne Gretzky have brought the half-brother of Summer Squall, last year’s Preakness winner, to Pimlico and added a minority partner, the Lakers’ Magic Johnson. McNall, the owner of the Kings, and Gretzky, his highest-paid player, are attending the film festival in Cannes, France--McNall has bankrolled movies and Gretzky’s wife, Janet Jones, is an actress--and they probably will arrive at Pimlico right around post time for the Preakness.

Early this year, trainer Wayne Lukas spotted Whadjathink on the backstretch at Santa Anita and deemed the Seattle Song-Katerina The Great colt the best-looking on the grounds. Whadjathink hasn’t always run to his looks, however, and after winning his first two starts he was a mess before the Bradbury Stakes on Feb. 20.

“He ran his race before he got to the gate,” said his jockey, Gary Stevens. “He was hot and washy and real nervous.”

On top of all that, Whadjathink also bled in the race and has been running while dosed with the diuretic Lasix ever since.

“This horse got muscle sore and stiff running on the dirt at Santa Anita, so that’s why I moved him to the grass, figuring it would be a little easier on him,” Michael Whittingham said. “He hadn’t had enough training for us to consider the Derby. He was a week short, or we might have run him in the Derby Trial. Then the Hollywood Park grass race was the only thing available for him.”

Whadjathink won the Spotlight by 1 3/4 lengths, but Whittingham thought the victory was more impressive than that.

“He drew off from those horses and he was beating some good grass horses, the kind that will be tough the rest of the year on turf back there,” the trainer said.

Whadjathink was ridden by Stevens in his first four races, but Stevens was aboard Best Pal, the second-place finisher in the Derby, so Jorge Velasquez rode Whadjathink in the Spotlight. Velasquez, who earned his way into the Hall of Fame while he was one of New York’s premier riders, left California after winning fewer than 8% of his mounts at the Santa Anita meeting that ended in April.

“Other riders were available, of course, but Jorge deserved this mount because he came to Hollywood to ride him in that last race,” Whittingham said.

Velasquez, 44, has won more than 6,100 races and won the 1981 Preakness on Pleasant Colony.

The Preakness shapes up as a seven-horse race, with Whadjathink, Honor Grades, Kentucky Derby winner Strike The Gold, Best Pal, Mane Minister, Olympio and Corporate Report.

Four of those horses were on the track shortly after 6 Monday morning for their final serious Preakness workouts. The temperature was already in the 70s and the humidity was more than 80%.

On a Pimlico track that has been playing fast, Whadjathink worked five-eighths of a mile Sunday in 1 minute and galloped out seven-eighths in 1:24 1/5 and a mile in 1:38 4/5.

Strike The Gold, with his Kentucky Derby jockey, Chris Antley, aboard, worked in company with Iroquois Park, a low-level allowance horse. Strike The Gold was timed in 1:12 3/5 for six furlongs, with Antley galloping him out in 1:28.

Best Pal worked half a mile in :47 2/5 and galloped out the next eighths in :59 2/5 and 1:13 4/5. Mane Minister, third in the Derby, worked five-eighths of a mile in 1 minute flat and was out in 1:13 3/5. Corporate Report, who is expected to set the pace in the Preakness after finishing ninth in the Derby, was timed in :58 3/5 and galloped another furlong out in 1:11 1/5.

Lukas, who watched the work from the rail, didn’t believe the times. “As far as I was concerned, (exercise rider Joanne McNamara) did exactly what I wanted with the horse, but I don’t think he worked that fast.”

Lukas doesn’t own a stopwatch. “The important thing is that he served notice that he’s ready for the race,” he said.

Advisory panel for The Times’ Triple Crown Ratings: Lenny Hale, vice president for racing at Aqueduct, Belmont Park and Saratoga; Frank (Jimmy) Kilroe, director of racing emeritus at Santa Anita; and Tommy Trotter, director of international racing at Arlington International Racecourse.

Career Horse S 1 2 3 Earnings 1. Strike The Gold 8 3 2 1 $1,034,610 2. Best Pal 11 6 3 1 1,293,695 3. Olympio 8 5 1 0 578,675 4. Fly So Free 11 7 1 1 1,382,004 5. Mane Minister 9 3 0 3 224,700 6. Green Alligator 8 2 4 0 256,500 7. Corporate Report 5 2 2 0 153,000 8. Hansel 10 5 1 2 811,335 9. Richman 15 9 2 2 954,579 10. Whadjathink 5 3 0 0 110,825