On July 7, horse racing fans will witness the final showdown of all the drama from the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes. It’s all led to this, and eight horses are ready to claim bragging rights at the Saratoga Race Track. However, fans are witnessing the rise and fall of champions on the undercard before the main event, and we’ve already seen some hiccups.

With Belmont Park undergoing its multi-year renovation, the track at Saratoga has been hosting the spa this year. Unfortunately, a major incident during the opening race at the venue raised some eyebrows. In what the superstitious would call a bad omen, the $95,000 allowance race for “fillies and mares, three years old and upwards” saw one of the competitors bow out.

“Princess Mischief pulled up very quickly by Manny Franco mid-stretch in Saratoga opener,” Bryan Langlois posted on X. “Walked onto equine ambulance on own power and vanned off…” he added. The footage showed Princess Mischief’s team and officials at the Saratoga race track attend to her before she boarded the ambulance. The footage also showed the horse with a serious limp on her front left leg.

“Eventful opening race on all fronts here at the spa…” Bryan Langlois concluded the post. However, Race 1 wasn’t the only one where a horse had a bad time. In fact, Race 7 contributed to the sense of concern regarding the track at Saratoga because the favorite to win the $110,000 race ducked out because of injury. The footage showed jockey Jose Ortiz stopping favorite Mystifying mid-race.

“Mystifying pulled up as soon as Jose Ortiz sensed an issue… Vets got to him immediately,” Langlois reported. The footage revealed that, just like Princess Mischief, something was wrong with his left front leg. “They stabilized left front fetlock in Kimzee splint… and he walked onto ambulance to be taken for further evaluation,” added the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. And talking about bad omens, there was one involving Preakness winner Umberto Rispoli.

Journalism’s jockey’s Saratoga race track mishap

The bad luck started even before the first horses lined up for Race 1, and it involved none other than the 2025 Preakness 150 winner. Once again, Bryan Langlois provided the footage of the mishap. “Not sure what kind of omen it might be… But Rispoli gets dumped in post parade by number 1 Scarlet’s Dream,” he wrote on X. While he couldn’t show the footage of the exact incident, the vet showed the aftermath.

It showed a jockey-less Scarlet’s Dream running at full speed around the Saratoga race track. Where was she heading? Well, as per the vet, the horse was heading back to her stable. Journalism’s team didn’t say anything about Rispoli, so hopefully the jockey is okay. After all, it would be a shame for the man who was among the first to call for a rematch with Sovereignty to get injured this late.

“I would fight him on the better ground. Look, I think there’s a lot of question marks when those things happen like that, Scott. Because the track is like that. He’s never been on this track. So I would say, let’s say then I lost the battle, not the war,” Rispoli said after his shocking loss to the Sovereignty on May 3rd. While the Bill-Mott-trained horse didn’t run the Preakness, the rematch is all set. In fact, the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness champs are not the only ones having a rematch. Both Baeza and Heart of Honor have faced the two champs before. Baeza finished third in the Derby, while HOH finished fifth at the Preakness.

And how can we forge the much-anticipated debut of Rodiguez, one of Bob Baffert’s Derby entries, who pulled out because of an unfortunate last-minute injury? So it’s no wonder the Day One mishaps at the Saratoga race track raised some concern. The last thing anyone wants is to lose any of the horses in this field to an injury.