National Treasure outduels Blazing Sevens to win the 2023 Preakness Stakes

National Treasure sped out of the gate with John Velasquez in the irons, and held off a hard-charging Blazing Sevens down the final stretch to capture the 148th Preakness Stakes at Pimlico.

He set off from the No. 1 spot in the gate with 5/2 odds and paid $7.80 to win, $4.00 to place and $2.60 to show.

Blazing Sevens was challenging National Treasure down the stretch, but took second place. He paid $5.00 to place and $2.80 to show. Kentucky Derby champion and third-place finisher Mage paid out $2.40 to show.

In his return to the Preakness, trainer Bob Baffert wins his record eighth The Run for the Black-Eyed Susans and Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez completes the career Triple Crown with his first Preakness win in 13 attempts.

Brad Cox trainee First Mission was scratched on Saturday, leaving seven horses in the race which is the smallest field since 1986.

Watch the Royal Ascot from Tuesday, June 20 to Saturday, June 24 only on NBC, NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports app and Peacock.

BALTIMORE – And so the troubled sport of horse racing came on a warm and still May Saturday to crumbling old Pimlico Race Course, to have itself defined at the distant extremes of grief and euphoria by a pair of three-year-old bay colts, bought for a total of $700,000 by separate groups of people with very big dreams and even bigger means.

One horse named Havnameltdown, whose ankle snapped in flight, and who was put to death in the deep dirt on the far turn, behind an impotent black screen that shielded neither humans nor horses from the reality of the moment, while party music thundered in the background, and who was carted away in a big white wagon that’s always called a horse ambulance even though sometimes it’s a horse hearse. It was as