BALTIMORE — Tone It Down will try to deliver a victory for the home team Saturday in the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico.

The colt is the only expected runner to have a prior race over the track, a third-place finish in the Tesio Stakes on May 2.
“I guess it would be the epitome of happiness, being in the horse business and having an opportunity to run in the Preakness,” trainer Bill Komlo said. “We’re Maryland people and excited about it. It would be a great thing.”
A $100,000 purchase last year by Komlo’s daughter and son-in-law, Tone It Down is a lightly raced colt, having won 2 of 6 starts. Komlo, 73, dreamed this horse would be his first Triple Crown starter.
“The Preakness was always in the back of our minds when we got the horse last May,” Komlo said. “When he ran second in his first start going a mile, we thought maybe we have a distance horse here.”
Komlo felt Tone It Down raced too close to the lead in the last two races, leading to a rider change from Mario Pino to Hall of Famer Kent Desormeaux, Pimlico’s leading jockey from 1987-89.
The first time Desormeaux will see the horse will be in the paddock on race day.
“He’s an experienced rider,” Komlo said from his barn at Laurel Park. “I would certainly like to have him get on the horse, but it’s going to be what it is. I can’t do much about it.”
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SLOW PAPA: Papa Clem turned in a slow workout Tuesday in preparation for the Preakness.
The Arkansas Derby winner went five furlongs in 1:05 at Pimlico. In contrast, Friesan Fire, who finished 18th in the Kentucky Derby, covered the same distance in a crisp 58.40 seconds.
Trainer Gary Stute didn’t seem concerned about the fourth-place finisher in the Derby.
“I was hoping for a faster time, but I’m not worried about it,” he said. “The track may have been a little slow if you look at the earlier works. All his workouts before the Derby were bad except for the last one. Coming back from the Derby in two weeks, I just mainly wanted him to get a feel for the track.”
Papa Clem isn’t fond of working in the morning.
“I never really thought of him as a Derby horse because he never really trained like one, but every time he’s run, he’s run a lot better than he trained,” Stute said.
The trainer felt his horse deserved a better fate in the Derby. There was considerable jostling in the stretch as runner-up Pioneerof the Nile, third-place finisher Musket Man and Papa Clem battled for the three slots behind 50-1 winner Mine That Bird.
“I thought I was a little unlucky not to finish second,” Stute said. “In a normal race, there might have been an inquiry. I’ve heard the Kentucky Derby is like Game 7 in the NBA finals. They’re going to let them play. They better mug you before they call a foul.”
Stute is trying to follow in his father’s footsteps. Mel Stute captured the Preakness in his first try with Snow Chief in 1986.
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LOADING THE MUSKET: Musket Man had his final major drill Tuesday at New Jersey’s Monmouth Park, a sharp half-mile work in 46.60 seconds.
“It went perfect, just what I wanted,” trainer Derek Ryan said. “I haven’t run any horses at Pimlico in quite a while, but it’s a similar track to Monmouth. I’ve won a couple stakes there.”
Ryan, who saddles a Preakness horse for the first time, is hoping for a dry track. He feels the sloppy track at the Derby compromised Musket Man, who finished a nose behind second-place Pioneerof the Nile.
“All that rain and it never dried out,” Ryan said. “He’s got a good turn of foot, but on a sloppy track you don’t have that turn of foot you would have on a dry track.”
The Tampa Bay and Illinois Derby winner will remain in New Jersey until Saturday morning with Eibar Coa set to ride. The assignment was in doubt as Coa was also the jockey for Preakness hopeful Big Drama.
“He’s ridden a lot for us in New York and we’ve had a lot of success with him,” Ryan said.
John Velazquez picked up the open mount on Big Drama.
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ROSE ON TERRAIN: Jeremy Rose, who guided Afleet Alex to victory in the 2005 Preakness, will ride Terrain.
Trainer Al Stall Jr. was looking for a rider with Triple Crown experience.
“He has won the race and he knows the track there,” Stall said.
Julien Leparoux, the rider for Terrain’s two starts this season, has the call on General Quarters in the Preakness.
Rose has ridden in the Preakness three times, finishing third on his last two mounts: Hemingway’s Key (2006) and Icabad Crane (2008).
Terrain will be aiming to snap a six-race losing streak. Most recently, the gelding rallied from 10th to get fourth in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland.
Terrain was expected to arrive in Baltimore on Wednesday on the same flight from Kentucky with filly Rachel Alexandra and Pioneerof the Nile.
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TOP JOCKS: The top four riders in the country based on earnings and two Hall of Famers will compete Friday, the day before the Preakness, in a four-race Jockey Challenge at Pimlico
The top rider, based on points accumulated in each race, gets $14,000. The runner-up earns $10,000 with $8,000 for third and $3,500 for fourth.
Garrett Gomez, Julien Leparoux, Rafael Bejarano and Ramon Dominguez hold the top four spots on the money list.
They will be joined by Hall of Famers Desormeaux and Mike Smith. Both have Preakness wins to their credit: Desormeaux with Real Quiet (1998) and Big Brown (2008) and Smith with Prairie Bayou (1993).
Javier Castellano, the rider of 2006 Preakness winner Bernardini, and Pino, the all-time leader in Maryland with more than 5,000 winners, also will compete.