05/14/2026
TAJ MAHAL — THE KING IS ALREADY HOME🐎
There are horses who travel to find their glory. And then there is Taj Mahal — who never had to leave.
Every race of his life has been run at Laurel Park. His debut. His first stakes win. His demolition job in the Federico Tesio. He won his February 6 debut going six furlongs, stretched to a muddy mile to win by a neck in the Miracle Wood Stakes fifteen days later, then won the Federico Tesio by 8¼ lengths at a mile and an eighth. (Horse Racing Nation) Three starts. Three wins. Never been to another track. Never needed to be.
A bay son of Nyquist — himself the 2016 Kentucky Derby winner — Taj Mahal is a perfect 3-for-3, racing exclusively at Laurel Park, the very track hosting the 151st Preakness Stakes on May 16. (CBS Sports) While every other horse in the field ships in as a stranger to this surface, Taj Mahal will wake up in his own barn, walk his own shedrow, feel the familiar ground beneath his feet.
In the Federico Tesio, he cleared four lengths on the field through the first quarter mile, stretched that margin to ten at the half, then — when a rival briefly closed — jockey Sheldon Russell gave him the slightest cue and he sprinted clear again. (FTBOA) There was more horse underneath him.
"After he ran in the Tesio, he seemed to know. He had that air about him. We all came back to the barn and he was just posing," (BloodHorse) said trainer Brittany Russell. "I think it could be a major advantage. All the tracks play differently, and just the fact that he trains over the surface every day — he gets to run right in his backyard." (Paulick Report)
And if he wins? History will be written twice in the same breath. Following Jena Antonucci's Belmont with Arcangelo and Cherie DeVaux's Kentucky Derby with Golden Tempo, a Taj Mahal victory would make Russell the first woman to train a Preakness Stakes winner — completing a symbolic Female Trainer Triple Crown across three different classics. (Paulick Report)
"It would feel like a fairy tale," (Paulick Report) Russell said. "Laurel has given me my business and my career. To do it here at home would be 100 percent more meaningful." (Paulick Report)
On Saturday, May 16, Taj Mahal breaks from Post 1 — the rail, his rail — on his own track, in front of his own crowd, with the woman who believed in him holding watch from the barn.
He enters at 5-1 in a field of 14. Not the favorite on paper. But on this track, on this day — arguably the hardest horse in the race to beat.
Some horses are built for the road. This one was built for exactly here.
🏇 151st Preakness Stakes — Laurel Park, May 16, 2026
Trainer: Brittany Russell | Jockey: Sheldon Russell | Odds: 5-1 | Post: 1🐎
