Preakness Stakes Preview

This Saturday features the second leg of the Triple Crown—the Preakness Stakes—at Pimlico, run at 1 3/16 mi. for three-year-olds on the dirt with a purse of $1.5 million. After the disqualification of the winner, Maximum Security, in the Kentucky Derby, his connections have opted to sideline him for this race. The horse that was elevated to the winner in the Derby, Country House, also will not be running in the Preakness due to illness. That leaves the field wide open, and the results show that is the case, with no horse having a winning probability higher than 17%. This means no horse is being valued less than 5-1. The Handicap Wizard is deferring to Signalman’s class and his highest winning percentage by assigning him the highest winning probability at 16.64%. Signalman placed third in the Blue Grass Stakes and first in the G2 Kentucky Jockey Club back in November. While not having the highest final speed estimate, he has the highest E1 and E2 component estimates along with Market King, whose last race was a blow-out. Signalman set a new pace top (111) as a three-year old in the Blue Grass. Second is Anothertwistoffate with a 14.41% winning probability, who had place finishes in the Lexington and the Sunland Derby in his last two races. He closed especially well in the Sunland Derby, which is reflected in his 9.7% LP estimate. Third is Owendale at 9.67%, who put in a peak performance with a top 99 Brisnet final speed figure in the Lexington Stakes, when he left Anothertwistoffate behind. If this race goes according to peak last performance, Owendale would be the best choice, but he is on the riskier side after flopping two races ago. Taking out Market King, Improbable becomes the 4th choice, who is the second most winning horse after Signalman. He is the least risky horse in the field, but his peak performance of 100 Brisnet was four races ago. Alwaysmining should be in the conversation for his third highest final speed estimate 19%, but his component figures are relatively weak and he has below average class with a WP% of only 5%. He won the Federico Tesio at 1 1/8 mi. at Laurel his last time out in April with a final time of 1:50:12. Bodexpress should not be overlooked for his Fla. Derby effort, when he came in 2nd to Maximum Security. He gets a mulligan for his Kentucky Derby performance for having had to check from Maximum Security drifting out of his lane coming out of the far turn, when Bodexpress was in the leading pack of horses. Bodexpress has good pedigree as the son of Bodemeister, who finished 2nd in the Preakness and Kentucky Derby in 2012.