You can make a Preakness bet on Saturday, May 15th for the second jewel of horse racing’s Triple Crown. In fact, you can actually make a bet on Preakness odds before that date since sportsbooks will already have the odds available.
Preakness bet lines favor the Kentucky Derby winner in this race. Even though the race is held just two weeks after the Derby, the winner of the Derby is still usually favored. The Preakness is shorter than the Derby at 1 3/16 miles. There are normally between 8-12 horses in the field and that makes the field much smaller than the Derby which had 20 horses.
The Kentucky Derby is a race where longshots have a chance to win but that is not the case in the Preakness. Favorites have dominated this race in the past. Last year another favorite won as the filly Rachel Alexandra beat Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird. It was a race instance where the Derby winner was not favored but Mine That Bird was a 50-1 longshot in the Derby.
As you handicap the Preakness you don’t have as many horses to consider and you don’t have as many things to look at. You can handicap the race a lot easier than you could the Derby. Although Rachel Alexandra won the race last year after not running in the Kentucky Derby that usually doesn’t happen. It was a unique situation a year ago as the filly was the best horse in the race and the favorite. Usually the winning horse in Preakness odds is a horse that came out of the Kentucky Derby.
A couple of times this decade a big longshot has won the Kentucky Derby and then failed in the Preakness. Giacomo was a huge longshot in the Derby but he was not a great horse and didn’t get much support in the Preakness. Last year Mine That Bird was a longshot winner in the Derby and he didn’t have the favorite’s role in the Preakness either. Neither of those two longshot Derby winners won the Preakness.
When you make a Preakness Stakes bet you really want a horse with some tactical speed since closers don’t have as much time in this race. You don’t have to take a speedball in this race but you rarely want to take a deep closer at Pimlico.