Preakness winner Journalism heading to Saratoga for possible rematch with Sovereignty in Belmont Stakes

Journalism, a brave winner of Saturday’s Grade 1 Preakness at Pimlico Race Course, is under consideration for a potential rematch with Grade 1 Kentucky Derby-winner Sovereignty in the Grade 1, $2 million Belmont Stakes presented by NYRA Bets on June 7 at Saratoga Race Course.

The five-day Belmont Stakes Racing Festival will be conducted at Saratoga Race Course from Wednesday, June 4 through Sunday, June 8. The festival will include 27 stakes races with purses totaling $11,275,000, the richest purses and highest number of stakes offered since the launch of the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival in 2014.

Trained by Michael McCarthy for Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, Bridlewood Farm, Don Alberto Stable, Robert V. LaPenta, Elayne Stables 5, Mrs. John Magnier, Michael B. Tabor and Derrick Smith, Journalism landed a 1 1/2-length second as the mutuel favorite two weeks ago to Godolphin’s Kentucky homebred Sovereignty in the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby, the first leg of the Triple Crown at Churchill Downs.

Early Saturday morning, Sovereignty, whose connections opted to skip the Preakness and train up to the Belmont Stakes, worked an easy half-mile in 49.76 seconds over the Oklahoma training track in front of a handful of onlookers at Saratoga. Later that evening, a robust crowd watching the second leg of the Triple Crown at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore had their collective hearts in their throats as jockey Umberto Rispoli urged Journalism through the narrowest of openings at the quarter-pole, bumping with Goal Oriented to his outside and a retreating Clever Again to his inside in search of racing room.