LRL: Wild Warrior just in time to win Private Terms
Top three may meet again in April’s Tesio
Frank Vespe
March 21, 2026
The Private Terms was the appetizer. The Tesio figures to be the main course.
Wild Warrior, Code of Silence, and Let’s Go Lando staged a thriller in Saturday’s $100,000 Private Terms Stakes at Laurel Park, and if all goes to plan, all three may reconvene in the April 18 Federico Tesio Stakes. That race is a “win today and see you in May” event for the May 16 Grade 1 Preakness.
Both Gary Capuano, who trains winner Wild Warrior and show horse Let’s Go Lando, and Tim Keefe, trainer of runner-up Code of Silence, confirmed that their tentative plan was to point these runners to the Tesio.
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After the scratch of longshot Higher Sense, Capuano had three of the five Private Terms runners, with Hollywood Import, winner of both the Spectacular Bid and Heft Stakes, the third.
Yet intriguingly enough, though he had ridden the more accomplished Let’s Go Lando in that runner’s last two starts, hot-riding apprentice Yedsit Hazlewood landed on Wild Warrior, who had won twice going two turns but finished fifth in the Spectacular Bid.
“Riders are never right,” Capuano joked after Wild Warrior’s victory. “I said, ‘Who do you want?’ and he said, ‘I think I want Wild Warrior.’ I said, ‘You ain’t been right yet.’”
Of course, Capuano and Hazlewood are winning at a 45% clip together, so perhaps he’s right on occasion. At least he was today.
Hollywood Import, with Mychel Sanchez up, grabbed the early advantage and led the field through moderate fractions: a half-mile in 48.24 seconds, three-quarters in 1:13.96. He soon would tire to fourth, however.
Wild Warrior was the nearest pursuer through those early stages, but rounding the turn, jockey Angel Cruz put Code of Silence in action the far outside, while JG Torrealba and Let’s Go Lando moved with that rival while between horses.
Code of Silence made the lead in upper stretch, while Let’s Go Lando struggled to find a seam along the rail. Code of Silence’s move also forced Hazlewood to shift farther outside, and in mid-stretch, it appeared Code of Silence would win.
But finally finding clear running, Wild Warrior rerallied outside to prevail by a neck in 1:47.84 for 1 1/16 miles on a fast main track.
“I didn’t think he was going to get there at the sixteenth pole,” Capuano said. “I didn’t think he was catching that horse, and then you could just kind of see him start grinding.”
Capuano signed the ticket to purchase Wild Warrior, then a yearling, for $25,000 on behalf of Rose Petal Stable LLC. The Maryland-bred Code of Silence is a homebred for Ken and Mary Holt’s Mount Peru Farm, while Let’s Go Lando, also Maryland-bred, was bred by ZWP Stable and Non Stop Stable and is owned by Eagle Up Stables, London Reid Thoroughbreds, and Non Stop Stable.
The trio were separated by just a length at the conclusion of the Private Terms, with Wild Warrior returning $7.20 to win and topping an exacta that returned $12.70 for a one-dollar wager. The winner now has three wins in six starts and over $135,000 banked.
Chances are, they’ll reconvene in four weeks to settle old scores, with a bigger prize awaiting.
“We always thought a lot of him,” Capuano said of Wild Warrior. “He finally got everything to work out good. He broke good. He had a good trip. It’s all about the trip in these races, and he just gutted it out.”
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