Three-Year-Old Racing Season
For 1998, Favorite Trick's conditioning was taken over by Bill Mott after Patrick Byrne accepted an offer to take over the stable of prominent Canadian horseman Frank Stronach. Under Mott, Favorite Trick opened his 3-year-old season with a win in the 7-furlong Swale Stakes at Florida's Gulfstream Park but in the Arkansas Derby, his first attempt at 1⅛ miles (9 furlongs), he tired near the end and suffered his first defeat, winding up third behind winner Victory Gallop.
By the time parimutuel betting closed for the May 2, 1998, Kentucky Derby, Favorite Trick was the second choice behind the John R. Gaines colt Indian Charlie and only slightly favored over the third choice, Overbrook Farm's Florida Derby winner, Cape Town. Starting from post position seven in the Derby, Favorite Trick moved up to fourth by the half mile pole but fell back to wind up eighth in the fifteen-horse field behind the winning 8:1 outsider Real Quiet.
Not raced in the Preakness or Belmont Stakes, Favorite Trick did not go back to the track until July 19, when he won the 8.5 furlong Long Branch Breeders' Cup Stakes at Monmouth Park. He followed that victory with an August 9 win in the 9 furlong Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga Race Course, then after a disappointing fifth place on the same track in the Grade II King's Bishop Stakes, he was sent to Keeneland Race Course, where in October he won the important Keeneland Breeders' Cup Mile Stakes. Favorite Trick's strong performance led to him being made the betting favorite in November's Breeders' Cup Mile at Churchill Downs, but he finished eighth in a field of fourteen to winner Da Hoss.
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