Napoleon Solo Wins Preakness Stakes in 14-Horse Laurel Park Run
Napoleon Solo won the preakness stakes on May 16, 2026, at Laurel Park, finishing first in a 14-horse field with Paco Lopez aboard. The 8-1 shot handled a race that had its biggest field in 15 years and was staged away from Pimlico while that track is being redeveloped.
Napoleon Solo At Laurel Park
Lopez was riding in only his second Preakness, and the result gave trainer Chad Summers his first runner in the race a victory. Napoleon Solo had entered with 8-1 morning odds, a number that placed him behind Iron Honor on the board but still within the group of horses drawing serious support in a crowded field.
The win came on a day when Laurel Park served as the Preakness's temporary home in Maryland. The race is expected to return to the new Pimlico next year, but this edition belonged to a horse that had already shown enough in earlier prep races to stay in the conversation.
Iron Honor And The Favorites
Iron Honor went off as the morning-line favorite at 9-2, but could not turn that status into the result the market expected. Flavien Prat rode Iron Honor, and Chad Brown was chasing a third Preakness victory after wins with Early Voting in 2022 and Cloud Computing in 2017.
Brown's colt had won the Gotham Stakes at Aqueduct Racetrack in February, then finished seventh in the Wood Memorial Stakes last month. Napoleon Solo had also finished fifth in the Fountain of Youth Stakes in February, behind Bull by the Horns, and later won New York's Champagne Stakes in October 2025, beating Talkin, who was second.
Golden Tempo Misses Laurel
The field was missing Derby winner Golden Tempo, who skipped the Preakness after winning earlier in May. That made this the third time in five years that the Kentucky Derby winner did not run in the middle jewel, one more sign of how different this race looked from the traditional setup.
There had not been a 14-horse Preakness since 2011, when Shackleford beat Derby winner Animal Kingdom by half a length. This time, the bigger field and the move to Laurel Park gave the race a different shape, and Napoleon Solo made the most of it.
