AP Sports Writer (AP) — Hall of Fame trainers Bob Baffert and D. Wayne Lukas saw their horses endure some troubled trips Saturday in the 150th running of the Preakness Stakes.
Baffert’s Goal Oriented finished fourth after bumping with winner Journalism down the stretch. A stewards inquiry was briefly posted to take a look at the contact, and then it was removed with no changes.
Click to Gallery
Nik Juarez, atop American Promise, looks on after participating in the 150th running of the Preakness Stakes horse race Saturday, May 17, 2025, at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
American Promise trainer D. Wayne Lukas looks on prior to the 150th running of the Preakness Stakes horse race Saturday, May 17, 2025, at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Flavien Prat, atop Goal Oriented, looks on after participating in the 150th running of the Preakness Stakes horse race Saturday, May 17, 2025, at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Goal Oriented's trainer Bob Bafert looks on prior to the 150th running of the Preakness Stakes horse race Saturday, May 17, 2025, at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Jockeys compete during the 150th running of the Preakness Stakes horse race Saturday, May 17, 2025, at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
American Promise was eighth in a field of nine after going through similar struggles two weeks earlier in the Kentucky Derby led to finishing 16th.
Baffert and Lukas, who have combined to win the second leg of the Triple Crown, each lamented not getting what they hoped for from their colts in the Preakness.
“He didn’t get to run his race,” Baffert said. “I wanted to see him on the lead, Maybe he would have stopped, I don’t know. He is lightly raced. He ran well, but he is still green. He was not used to being behind horses and he got intimidated.”
American Promise's jockey, Maryland native Nik Juarez, said the horse “just didn’t have it.”
“When he got bumped and roughed up a little bit, he kind of threw his head and quit on us,” Lukas said. "I didn’t like the way he responded. ... I just think that attitude-wise, we’ve got to change it a little bit.”
Irish trainer Brendan Walsh's Gosger went off at odds of 15-1, third-longest in the Preakness. He also was poised to pulled a big upset if not for Journalism's remarkable run from the middle of the pack to the finish line.
“I thought we were home when he opened up,” Walsh said. “I’m disappointed not to win it, but I’m not disappointed in the horse. He ran a great race. He is an improving horse and he will improve off this.”
Jockey Luis Saez said they “had no excuses” and hopes Gosger will learn from the experience.
“Luis said at the end he just got a little bit lackadaisical, and he was out on his own maybe a little too long and the other horse came by and flew by him,” Walsh said. “Maybe we will get our turn the next time.”
NBC Sports' leadup to the race included an introduction from actor Frankie Muniz, known for his childhood role on the show “Malcolm in the Middle.” Muniz espoused the virtues of the Preakness as the middle jewel of horse racing's Triple Crown, which for the fifth time in seven years went off without a shot at a Triple Crown for various reasons.
“People don’t talk about the middle enough,” Muniz said, bringing up middle seats on planes, the middle ages and how nobody wants to peak in middle school. “When you’re in the middle, you’ve got to fight for attention."
The attention was on Pimlico Race Course, hosting the Preakness for a final time before the structure that opened in 1870 is demolished and rebuilt.
“Beginnings and endings get all the credit, but life happens in the middle on a journey from here to there," Muniz said. “That’s where you prove what you’re really made of. On a day like today, at this ancient racetrack all dressed up one more time, there’s absolutely no place better to be than the middle.”
AP horse racing: https://apnews.com/hub/horse-racing
Nik Juarez, atop American Promise, looks on after participating in the 150th running of the Preakness Stakes horse race Saturday, May 17, 2025, at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
American Promise trainer D. Wayne Lukas looks on prior to the 150th running of the Preakness Stakes horse race Saturday, May 17, 2025, at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Flavien Prat, atop Goal Oriented, looks on after participating in the 150th running of the Preakness Stakes horse race Saturday, May 17, 2025, at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Goal Oriented's trainer Bob Bafert looks on prior to the 150th running of the Preakness Stakes horse race Saturday, May 17, 2025, at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Jockeys compete during the 150th running of the Preakness Stakes horse race Saturday, May 17, 2025, at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
Protesters confronted federal officers in Minneapolis on Thursday, a day after a woman was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.
The demonstrations came amid heightened tensions after President Donald Trump's administration dispatched 2,000 officers and agents to Minnesota for its latest immigration crackdown.
Across the country, another city was reeling after federal immigration officers shot and wounded two people in a vehicle outside a hospital in Portland, Oregon.
The killing of 37-year-old Renee Good in Minneapolis on Wednesday set off a clash between federal and state officials over whether the shooting appeared justified and whether a Minnesota law enforcement agency had jurisdiction to investigate.
Here's what is known about the shooting:
The woman was shot in her SUV in a residential neighborhood south of downtown Minneapolis, about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from where police killed George Floyd in 2020. Videos taken by bystanders and posted online show an officer approaching a vehicle stopped in the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle.
The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward and a different ICE officer standing in front of the vehicle draws his gun and immediately fires at least two shots at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.
It is not clear from the videos if the officer gets struck by the SUV, which speeds into two cars parked on a curb before stopping.
It’s also not clear what happened in the lead-up to the shooting.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the SUV was part of a group of protesters that had been harassing agents and “impeding operations” that morning. She said agents had freed one of their vehicles that was stuck in snow and were leaving the area when the confrontation and shooting occurred.
No video has emerged to corroborate Noem’s account. Bystander video from the shooting scene shows a sobbing woman who says the person shot was her wife. That woman hasn’t spoken publicly to give her version of events.
Good died of gunshot wounds to the head.
A U.S. citizen born in Colorado, Good described herself on social media as a “poet and writer and wife and mom." Her ex-husband said Good had just dropped off her 6-year-old son at school Wednesday and was driving home when she encountered ICE agents on a residential street.
He said Good and her current partner moved to Minneapolis last year from Kansas City, Missouri.
Good's killing is at least the fifth death to result from the aggressive U.S. immigration crackdown the Trump administration launched last year.
Noem said Thursday that there would be a federal investigation into the shooting, though she again called the woman’s actions “domestic terrorism.”
“This vehicle was used to hit this officer,” Noem said. “It was used as a weapon, and the officer feels as though his life was in jeopardy.”
Vice President JD Vance said the shooting was justified and referred to Good's death as “a tragedy of her own making.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara gave no indication that the driver was trying to harm anyone when he described the shooting to reporters Wednesday. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he had watched videos of the shooting that show it was avoidable.
The agent who shot Good is an Iraq War veteran who has served for nearly two decades in the Border Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.
Jonathan Ross has been a deportation officer with ICE since 2015, records show. He was seriously injured this summer when he was dragged by the vehicle of a fleeing suspect whom he shot with a stun gun.
Federal officials have not named the officer. But Noem said he was dragged by a vehicle in June, and a department spokesperson confirmed Noem was referring to the Bloomington, Minnesota, case in which documents identified the injured officer as Ross.
Court documents say Ross got his arm stuck in the window as a driver fled arrest in that incident. Ross was dragged 100 yards (91 meters), and cuts to his arm required 50 stitches.
According to police, officers initially responded to a report of a shooting outside a hospital Thursday afternoon.
Minutes later police heard that a man who had been shot was asking for help in a residential area a couple of miles away. Officers went there and found a man and a woman with gunshot wounds. Officers determined they were wounded in a shooting with federal agents.
Police Chief Bob Day said the FBI was leading the investigation and he had no details about events that led to the shooting.
The Department of Homeland Security said the vehicle’s passenger was “a Venezuelan illegal alien affiliated with the transnational Tren de Aragua prostitution ring” who was involved in a recent shooting. When agents identified themselves to the occupants during a “targeted vehicle stop,” the driver tried to run them over, the department said. An agent fired in self-defense, it said.
There was no immediate independent corroboration of that account or of any gang affiliation of the vehicle’s occupants.
Trump and his allies have consistently blamed Tren de Aragua for being at the root of violence and illicit drug dealing in some U.S. cities.
Drew Evans, head of Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said Thursday that federal authorities have denied the state agency access to evidence in the Good case, barring the state from investigating the shooting alongside the FBI.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz demanded that state investigators be given a role, telling reporters that residents would otherwise have a difficulty accepting the findings of federal law enforcement.
“And I say that only because people in positions of power have already passed judgment from the president to the vice president to Kristi Noem,” Walz said.
Noem denied that Minnesota authorities were being shut out, saying: “They don’t have any jurisdiction in this investigation.”
Dozens of protesters gathered Thursday morning outside a Minneapolis federal building being used as a base for the immigration crackdown. Border Patrol officers fired tear gas and doused demonstrators with pepper spray to push them back from the gate.
Area schools were closed as a safety precaution.
Protests were also planned across the U.S. in cities including New York, New Orleans and Seattle.
Associated Press writer Audrey McAvoy contributed.
Protesters confront federal agents outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)
People gather for a vigil after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a motorist earlier in the day, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Bruce Kluckhohn)
People participate in a protest and vigil after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis, on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press via AP)
