Saturday’s quartet of Triple Crown preps – a coast-to-coast betting buffet – turned out to be an odd mix of things.

A champion no-showed. A mudder mudded. A race proved inscrutable. And in the end, we’re more likely to have seen the Preakness winner win yesterday than the Derby winner. Here’s whose stock is rising, or not.

STOCK… FALLING Two-year-old champion Fierceness entered the Holy Bull with a big reputation and the hardware to back it up but had no answers. Bumped around a bit leaving the gate, he was able to reach up-close position behind a glacial early pace, made a bid for control nearing the lane… and that was that. He faded to third, and not a good third. Fortunately, there’s still time to right the ship.

STOCK… RISING Nysos won’t win the Kentucky Derby; he’s trained by Bob Baffert, who is very much persona non grata in Louisville. But if you could get a Preakness future wager in this early, he’d almost certainly be the favorite after winning the Robert B. Lewis Stakes impressively by over seven lengths.

STOCK… FALLING The eighth race December 31 at Oaklawn Park took a beating yesterday. Each of the top two finishers ran in preps yesterday, and each went favored. Runner-up Lightline was 6-5 in the Withers, while winner Carbone was 9-5 in the Arkansas Derby. Both of ‘em took the worst of it, though, Lightline finishing a pretty indifferent third behind upset winner Uncle Heavy and Carbone a distant seventh behind Mystik Dan.

STOCK… RISING He ain’t heav– no, wait a minute, he is heavy. Uncle Heavy, that is, who ran down El Grande O on the line to win the WIthers by a desperate nostril. The Pennsylvania-bred is trained at Parx by Butch Reid and may be pointed to the Wood Memorial. Does he look like a major Kentucky Derby player? Probably not – the Withers field was not strong. But for a horse whose prior stakes win had come in state-bred company, it was a big step forward.

STOCK… RISING Hades hadn’t been past seven furlongs until Saturday’s Holy Bull, but he made his two-turn bow a memorable one. Under a crafty Paco Lopez ride, the Florida-bred, trained by Joe Orseno, made the front and slowed it right down, ticking off sluggish early fractions – 25.03 for the quarter, 50.53 for the half. He faced a bid from champion Fierceness inside the half-mile pole, eventually shrugged him off, and went on to win by two lengths. Orseno said he plans to remain in Florida with his charge and is likely to start in either the Fountain of Youth or the Florida Derby, but likely not both.

STOCK… FALLING On paper, the Withers field was, shall we say, lightly accomplished. After Uncle Heavy’s victory, the nine horses that contested it now have a combined total of one stakes win outside of state-restricted company. 

STOCK… RISING Didn’t necessarily see that coming – and neither did the bettors, who sent him off at 11-1 – but Mystik Dan absolutely laid waste to the field in the Southwest. Under Brian Hernandez, the Kenny McPeek trainee rallied from midflight along the rail to roll home eight lengths clear, getting the last 5/16 of a mile in just about 30 seconds flat. If there’s a note of caution – and there always is – it’s that the race took place on a muddy, sealed strip.

STOCK… RISING Domestic Product ran a sneaky-good race in the Holy Bull, rallying into second at 14-1 odds under jockey Tyler Gaffalione for trainer Chad Brown. Chasing a very slow early pace, he was the only runner to make up ground on the winner in the last five-sixteenths. It wasn’t much ground – just a length – but in a race in which most others, including champion Fierceness, were going backwards, this one might be one among the non-winners to eyeball.

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