So as you ponder how to construct your tickets for Saturday’s 149th Preakness Stakes from Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, you’re wondering what kind of horse wins the shortest (1 3/16-mile) of the Triple Crown races.
Front-runners like American Pharoah (2015) and Justify (2018), the last two Triple Crown winners. Not to mention pace-setters like Funny Cide (2003), Smarty Jones (2004), Big Brown (2010), Oxbow (2013) and last year’s winner, National Treasure.
Pressing Your Luck
Pressers also win their share of the Triple Crown’s second jewel. Pressers like California Chrome (2014), the filly Swiss Skydiver (2020) and Early Voting (2022). So do horses who stalk: see I’ll Have Another (2012), Cloud Computing (2017), War of Will (2019) and Rombauer (2021).
So what kind of horse wins the Preakness? Well, basically any and all running styles outside of deep closers. The last member of that genus to reach the Pimlico winner’s circle was Exaggerator in 2016. And he found paydirt only because of a sloppy track and a quick opening half-mile pace that opened the door for his running style to prevail.
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Speed Wins
Which brings us to one of the keys to constructing your Preakness tickets. Speed. Front-end speed. Set the pace early and late success often follows. Nine of the last 15 Preakness winners were in first, second or third after the opening half-mile. Five of the last 15 winners led the pack at that point. Find the front-end speed and key your tickets.
That leads us to Imagination (6-1), who finds himself as the lone speed in a race that—with the scratching of former 8-5 favorite Muth on Wednesday due to a fever—is suddenly devoid of much early speed. This Into Mischief colt has yet to finish out of the exacta (2-4-0) in six starts and three of those four runner-up finishes were by a neck. That included his last outing: a narrow loss to Stronghold in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby April 6.
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Betting Baffert
Stronghold went on to finish a solid seventh in the Kentucky Derby, a race off-limits to Imagination due to another factor that bodes well for Preakness success—his trainer, Bob Baffert. The Hall of Fame trainer was forced out of the Kentucky Derby for the third consecutive year due to an extension of his suspension. None of which, however, erases Baffert’s success in the Preakness. Last year, National Treasure gave Baffert his record eighth Preakness title. This doesn’t count his two seconds and two thirds with 25 starters. That means Baffert’s horses hit the Pimlico tote board nearly 50% of the time.
You’re getting the race’s lone speed at the loftiest odds of his career with one of the best jockeys in the world—Frankie Dettori—in the irons. And he’s not the favorite.
That would be Mystik Dan (5-2), who inherited favorite status with Muth’s defection. When the morning-line odds came out Monday, it marked the first time since I’ll Have Another in 2012 that the Kentucky Derby winner wasn’t the de-facto Preakness favorite.
Make no mistake. Mystik Dan can win this race. He’s a stalker with the fastest Beyer Speed Figures (a 100 and a 101) in the field. If the weather reports that indicate rain for the Baltimore area hold for Saturday, he’s a must-use on your tickets, due to his comfort in the slop.
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Testing Trends
All that said—and putting aside the question of how much his gritty, photo-finish Derby victory took out of him—Mystik Dan is fighting two trends that aren’t his friends. The first is his history of wheeling back on short rest. Trainer Kenny McPeek spent much of the post-Derby week watching every move of his charge, telling anyone who would listen that he was on the fence about running him due to the last time Mystik Dan came back two weeks later. That was last November at Churchill Downs, when he followed up a maiden-breaking win with a miserable fifth by eight lengths in an allowance.
The second is recent Preakness history. The last Derby ex-pat to win the Preakness was War of Will in 2019. The last Preakness favorite to run to his odds was Justify the previous year. Horses who have bypassed the Derby captured the last four Preaknesses—a trend that smacks fourth-place Derby finishers Catching Freedom (6-1) and 17th-place Just Steel (15-1) in the face.
Even as closers aren’t top of mind for top of ticket, Catching Freedom does belong on your vertical (exacta, trifecta, superfecta) tickets. That’s because closers may not hit the wire first, but they usually hit the board. Somewhere.
We’ve told the story before about Jesus’ Team in 2020, who finished third at 40-1. And Everfast, who finished second to War of Will in 2019—at 29-1. There is Tenfold in 2018, who finished third to Justify at 26-1. And Senior Investment finished third in 2017—at 31-1. All of them were closers who produced mind-bending payouts for finding the board.
