Mike Brunker Horse racing editor • Profile • E-mail

BALTIMORE - Afleet Alex snatched victory from disaster at the top of the stretch in the Preakness Stakes on Saturday, miraculously managing to keep his feet after colliding with bolting front-runner Scrappy T and then regrouping to post a 4 3/4-length victory in the second leg of racing’s Triple Crown.

“He did something that champions do,” trainer Tim Ritchey said of his horse’s dramatic stumble and lightning-fast reaction to avoid falling and hurtling jockey Jeremy Rose head-first to the ground. “… I’ve never seen a horse stumble that badly and lose his momentum and come back to win a Grade 1 race.”

Afleet Alex, the 3-1 favorite in the 1 3/16^th-mile race, returned $8.60 to fans who stuck with him after his third-place finish two weeks ago in the Kentucky Derby.

By beating Kentucky Derby winner Giacomo, who finished five lengths behind runner-up Scrappy T, the colt owned by five small-time owners from the Philadelphia area assured there will be no Triple Crown winner for a record 27^th straight year.

Afleet Alex, who developed a large public following after his owners embraced “Alex’s Lemonade Stand,” a youth-run cancer-fighting charity, needed all the qualities emblazoned on the T-shirts the charity sells — “courage, strength, heart” — to avoid what would undoubtedly been a tragic accident.

Many of those in the record Preakness crowd of 115,318 at Pimlico Race Course let loose a collective gasp when Afleet Alex, in the middle of a bold move from the back of the 14-horse field, suddenly found leader Scrappy T crossing his path from left to right in reaction to the left-handed whip of jockey Ramon Dominguez at the top of the stretch.

“The horse completely caught me off guard,” Dominguez said afterward. “… I decided to hit him left-handed … and he made a right hand turn. … The horse just kind of overreacted.”

Slide show   Images of the Triple Crown See images from the 2005 Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes.

Before the 26-year-old Rose could yank back on the reins, one of Alex’s front feet hit one of Scrappy T’s rear hooves — a frequently disastrous collision known as “clipping heels” in racing terminology. The impact caused Afleet Alex to begin to fall forward, almost as if someone tripped a human runner as he was sprinting for the wire.

But as Afleet Alex went down nearly to his knees, sending Rose sliding forward out of his saddle, the colt somehow managed to stab forward with one foot in the blink of an eye, catching his 1,100-plus-pound frame and then lifting it and his rider skyward.

“I thought for sure we were going down,” an amazed Rose said at the post-race news conference. “I was going to try to go down with him as close as I could, because I figured that was my best shot of getting away. Luckily he came right back up underneath.”

The jockey, a former high-school wrestler from State College, Pa., said the horse deserved at least 90 percent of the credit, with his role limited to grabbing onto Afleet Alex’s mane and using it to maintain his balance.

Al Behrman / AP Afleet Alex, with Jeremy Rose aboard, celebrates after winning the 130th Preakness Stakes on Saturday.

After regaining his feet, Afleet Alex quickly got back to the business at hand. Despite having lost all momentum, the son of Northern Afleet shifted back to high gear and caught Scrappy T in the upper stretch before pulling away to what might otherwise have been called an easy victory.

Running time for the race was 1 minute, 55 seconds, the fastest time since 1998.

After the race Ritchey said Afleet Alex's next assignment will be the Belmont Stakes in three weeks.

Ritchey said he thinks Afleet Alex will be able to handle the 1 1/2-mile Belmont distance “without a problem.”

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