For Trombetta barn, a chance to be in the spotlight
Veteran trainer has four in Preakness weekend stakes
Ted Black
May 14, 2026
Although he will not saddle a horse in either the Grade 1, $2 million Preakness Stakes or the Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan at Laurel Park this weekend, trainer Mike Trombetta will be well represented both days as his runners will contest a quartet of stakes on Friday and Saturday, two each on the grass and the main track.
Trombetta will have one horse in one of the primary supporting stakes on Friday when he sends out Maclean’s Rook in the Grade 3, $250,000 Pimlico Special for three-year-olds and up. A Maryland-bred four-year-old son of Maclean’s Music that he trains for PrepsToThePros Racing LLC and July Cavalry Racing, Maclean’s Rook has won once in three seasonal outings and sports four wins and just shy of $200,000 banked from eight career tries.
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The Pimlico Special will mark Maclean’s Rook’s stakes debut. His four victories are thus far equally divided between Colonial Downs and Laurel Park.
“He won his last start against allowance company at Colonial Downs back in March and he’s been doing good since then,” said Trombetta. “At some point, we needed to find out if he is going to be a stakes horse. After he won that last allowance race, there really were not a lot of spots for him, so we figured he deserved a shot at the Pimlico Special.”
Trombetta, who won 18 stakes races in 2025, is on the lookout for his next big runner. In his career, he’s saddled three Grade 1 winners and also had a Preakness runner-up in 2006 with Sweetnorthernsaint, also the beaten favorite in that year’s Kentucky Derby, and a Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint runner-up with Wet Your Whistle in 2020.
Three races prior to the Pimlico Special, Trombetta will send out Ultimate Love in the $100,000 Hilltop Stakes for three-year-old fillies traveling one mile on the Laurel lawn. A Florida-bred sophomore daughter of Curlin that he trains for Live Oak Plantation, Ultimate Love captured the Selima Stakes last fall over the course then was a respectable fifth in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Del Mar.
She makes her seasonal debut on Friday as the 4-5 morning line favorite with John Velazquez aboard.
“She’s been training well since we brought her back, and the Hilltop looked like the best spot to bring her back,” Trombetta said. “I expect that she’ll do really well in there. She’s won both of her starts over the Laurel turf course, and she won at the distance.”
On Saturday, Trombetta will send out two runners in stakes leading up to the Preakness, including longshot Pont Aven in the $100,000 Sir Barton Stakes, named in honor of the sport’s first Triple Crown winner in 1919.
A Maryland-bred sophomore son of Blofeld that Trombetta trains for Day At The Races LLC, Pont Aven needed six tries to earn his diploma, but he followed up his maiden tally by taking an allowance event over the Laurel main track in late March. Like Maclean’s Music, Pont Aven makes his stakes debut in the Sir Barton and has the chance to answer several questions about his ability.
The Sir Barton is restricted to three-year-olds that have not won an open stake.
“When you have a three-year-old that wins a maiden special weight and then an entry level allowance, you need to find out if he’s going to be a stakes horse or going to the claimers,” Trombetta said. “He’s won his last two races over the track and he’s been training well since his last start. We were looking at trying him in a stakes sometime this spring and the Sir Barton looked like a good spot for that. I think he’ll run well in there.”
Trombetta also will saddle Determined Kingdom in the $125,000 Jim McKay Stakes on the turf. A seven-year-old Animal Kingdom gelding that he trains for the Estate of R. Larry Johnson, Determined Kingdom seeks to rebound from a nondescript 10th-place finish in the King T. Leatherbury Stakes in his seasonal debut last month. Overall, he boasts 10 wins and more than $820,000 banked from 32 career tries, but he has been winless since an allowance score at Keeneland Race Course in the fall of 2024. He finished third in last year’s edition of the Jim McKay at Pimlico.
In addition to the various graded stakes winners that Trombetta has saddled during his career, the conditioner, who has strings at both Laurel and Fair Hill, has recorded 2,425 career wins with purse earnings just shy of $93 million. So a pair of training milestones, 2,500 wins and $100 million earnings, are not far off in the horizon. He could reach the win milestone sometime in 2027 and the nine-figure earnings plateau not long after, but both are not currently on his radar.
“You know, those will be terrific milestones when we get there,” Trombetta said. “But that’s a long way away, really. Right now I’m just focused on seeing what we can do this weekend at Laurel. Preakness weekend and the Triple Crown put Maryland racing in the spotlight for the two weeks right after the Derby. It’s a chance for local trainers and owners and riders to earn a share of the spotlight.”
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