Napoleon Solo<\/a> will point toward either the 10-furlong Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers on Aug. 29 at Saratoga or the nine-furlong Grade 1, $1 million Pennsylvania Derby on Sept. 19 at Parx after his runner-up finish in Saturday’s Haskell (G1) at Monmouth Park, trainer Chad Summers said.<\/p>\n“We’ll nominate for the Pennsylvania Derby and the Travers and then see how the next couple of weeks go, and how he comes out of the race,” Summers said. “We’ll watch the Jim Dandy and the Curlin with great interest and keep an eye on Golden Tempo … get with the ownership and figure out a plan of attack.”<\/p>\n
Summers said the gray son of Liam’s Map, who won the Champagne Stakes (G1) in October at Belmont at the Big A and added the Preakness in May at Laurel Park, exited the race in good order and would arrive back at Saratoga on Sunday afternoon to resume training. Napoleon Solo trained at the Spa last summer ahead of a restricted maiden score on debut in August and the Champagne at second asking.<\/p>\n
“He definitely had an affinity for this main track last year and you’d like the opportunity for once to run out of your own stall,” said Summers, who noted that Napoleon Solo may employ new tactics in his next start.<\/p>\n
Longer-range targets include the Breeders’ Cup in October at Keeneland and the Saudi Cup (G1) in February at King Abdulaziz Racecourse.<\/p>\n
In the Haskell, Napoleon Solo showed the way through six furlongs in 1:12.01 over a sloppy and sealed main track with regular rider Paco Lopez aboard. Long shot Baby Vino rushed up the rail under Jorge Vargas Jr. to poke a head in front at the stretch call, and the pair battled the length of the stretch run before Baby Vino prevailed by a half-length in a final time of 1:50.18. A stewards’ inquiry into the stretch run resulted in no change to the order of finish.<\/p>\n
Summers tipped his cap to Baby Vino, who arrived off a 10 3\/4-length score in the Pegasus Stakes with Lopez aboard at the Oceanport, N.J., oval.<\/p>\n
“I had a lot of respect for Baby Vino going into the race, he’s a nice horse and he’d run on that track before and was super impressive winning the prep race,” Summers said. “Ultimately, we ran a good race. We put away a Grade 1-winner in Further Ado, The Puma (fourth) should be a Grade 1-winner (who missed by a nose in the Florida Derby) and Iron Honor (third) ran second in the Preakness.<\/p>\n
“I was proud of our effort. He battled,” Summers continued. “We let a little too much of the rail open up and it was a good ride from Vargas to take advantage of it and unfortunately we had to settle for second.”<\/p>\n
Bred in Kentucky by John D. Gunther and Eurowest Bloodstock, Napoleon Solo is out of the stakes-winning Scat Daddy mare Atomic Blonde and brought $40,000 at the 2024 Keeneland September Yearling Sale. Racing for Espoir USA, he has earned more than $1.7 million from a 6: 3-1-0 record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Carlos J. Calo \/ Eclipse Sportswire Napoleon Solo will point toward either the 10-furlong Grade 1, $1.25…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-247623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Napoleon](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Napoleon_Solo_2026_Preakness_615x400_1.jpg\")
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