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May 11, 2008 - May 17, 2008

Crist Blog | May 17, 2008

Preakness Day Live

11:12 am: It's 67 and sunny at Pimlico, with only a 10 percent chance of any rain before 5 p.m. The chalk-chalk early double is in the books, with Don'ttrythisathome ($6.20) taking the first for Scott Lake in 1:09.88 after dueling from the ouside in 45.30 and drawing off while wide. Actually got to see the second race just after ESPN2 came on at 11 a.m., where Media Play ($6.80) won the N1x for track owner Frank Stronach in 1:43.60 with a wide rally from far back over pacesetter Access Love. The main track looks fast and fair and the turf is being labelled "good."

Only 23 late scratches at Pimlico today, but that includes seven from the off-the-turf second race (the rest of the turf races stay put); Forest Park twice, since he was scratched from both the 3rd and the 8th; and Behindatthebar from the Preakness, which we've known about for two days.

Twenty minutes until the 3rd, the five-horse Maryland Sprint Handicap. Thoughts on the early pick 4 (race 4 through 7) coming soon.

11:52 am: Early pick-4 starts in 12 minutes. Hard to make it pay a lot with fields of just 10, 6, 6 and 5, but here's what I thought:

Race 4 (Deputed Testamony H.): The two favorites, Off the Glass and Shining Punch, look like the right ones in this starter handicap for Maryland-breds who have run for a $17.5k claiming tag in '07-'08. Off the Glass has won the equivalent of this race three times, including the Preakness day '06 version, and would be odds-on if he weren't returning from a 5 1/2-month layoff. A: 8,10. C: 1,2,6,7.

Race 5 (Skipat Stakes) : Akronism's A race wins this, Drama Lady looked like a new and improved horse winning her season bow at Gulfstream last time out, and My Sister Sue (beaten a head in this race last year) could be dangerous on the lead if she gets clear of Hold That Prospect early. A: 3,6,7

Race 6: (Gallorette Handicap): Easy as some combination of 1-2-3, as Valbenny, Stormy West and Roshani tower over three rivals. I'll press Roshani, who figures to get a soft pace and a sweet trip. A:3 B:1,2.

Race 7: (Barbaro Stakes): Five starters with a combined seven victories seek their first stakes victory here, and multiple stakes-placed Roman Emperor is faster to date and more seasoned than the others. A repeat of his second to Barrier Reef in the Whirlaway would win this. I'll also use Spurrier, the best finisher, and D'Tara, who's improving and should appreciate a return to two-turn racing. A:1 B: 3,5.

In the 3rd, trainer Gary Contessa followed up his Black-Eyed Susan victory with Sweet Vendetta by sending out Starforaday to win the G3 Maryland Sprint Handicap. Starforaday ($8.20), best remembered (at least by me) for winning the last leg of the Travers Day pick-six at 27-1 when trained by Donna Wormser, was bought by Winning Move Stable and transferred to Contessa over the winter and returned with a career-best effort winning an Aqueduct allowance race May 1. Starforaday ran the six furlongs in 1:09.56 under Prado.

12:45 pm: In the Deputed Testamony, sharp local trainer Damon Dilodovico continued his dominance of these big-day statebred starter handicaps. He trained Off the Glass to win three of them, including the 2006 Preakness Day one, and he scored here with Let Me Be Frank, who he claimed for just $5,000 two starts back. This race looked like the Pimlico of yore, a two-speed number and a treadmill of a race, with Let's Be Frank leading Gammy's a Winner from flagfall to finish. Let Me Be Frank, a sturdy (84 career starts) 6-year-old with a sturdy pedigree -- he's by Awad out of an Ack Ack (!) mare -- ran the mile and a sixteenth in 1:43.24 and paid $9.60 as the fourth choice.

1:20 pm: Late-arriving crowd or more Eight Belles fallout? Betting on the first five Preakness Day races is down a staggering 22 percent over last year's corresponding handle, with 26 of the day's first 28 pools lower than last year's by anywhere from 11 to 48 percent. By contrast, Derby Day betting was up 16 percent year over year through the first five races, though it later slipped and ended up down 2 percent for the day.

Tough beat for me in the Skipat, as 7-1 (!) My Sister Sue blasted to the lead and looked home free with a 3 1/2-length lead after five furlongs in 56.57, but 2-1 Akronism nailed her at the wire to win by a neck. It was a virtual rerun of last year's Skipat, when My Sister Sue had a two-length lead at the furlong pole and lost by a head to Silmaril. Akronism, a 4-year-old Not For Love filly owned and bred by Robert S. Evans and trained by Tim Ritchey, was the slight favorite over 2-1 Drama Lady and ran the six furlongs under Pablo Morales in 1:09.76. The $40.00 exacta was some consolation but My Sister Sue would have made the pick-4 a lot more interesting than it's looking at the halfway point. I'm alive 3/1,3,5 for $2 and 1,2/1,3,5 for $1. Even if I get there, it's unclear that I will get my $198 investment back.

1:40 pm: Roshani looked like she was going to get worn down by Lady Digby with a furlong to go in the Gallorette, but dug in and prevailed by a neck in the first grass race at Pimlico since May 4. Roshani, a 5-year-old Fantastic Light mare who won last year's Matchmaker, had to survive a five-minute stewards' inquiry and a foul claim for incidental brushing in the stretch. Roshani ran the mile and a sixteenth for Pletcher/Velazquez in 1:45.02, 4.70 seconds slower than Precious Kitten's 1:40.32 on a firm course last year. The course could just as easily be labelled "yielding" as "good."

2:38 pm: You can see my lack of imagination and insight for the back half of the Preakness card from the following caveman pick-6 play I put in to keep me out of trouble for a while: 2x7x2x1x8x1. This was supposed to be a $224 play at the $1 Pimlico minimum, but NYRA Rewards rejected the wager at less than $2, so I went for the $448.

Race 7 (Barbaro Stakes): Used 1-2 finishers Roman Emperor ($5.20) and D'Tara (9-5). Woo-hoo. At least I got almost 3-to-5 on the pick-4 play when Roman Emperor completed a $318.20 for $2 sequence.

Race 8: (Old Mutual Turf Sprint): My 7 of the 11 are the 1,6,7,8,12,13 and 14. C'mon somebody.

Race 9: (Hirsch Jacobs): Can't get past Lantana Mob and Force Freeze in their Bachelor Stakes rematch.

Race 10: Shakis feels like 50-50 to show up and run his A race. If he does, he'll gallop, so I singled him. If he doesn't, I would have had to go deep (and will in the pick-4) with Distorted Reality, Stay Close and Salinja, and I'm not confident enough in any of them to say Buffalo Man, Pays to Dream and Pick Six can't win if the favorite fails.

Race 11: I hit the coward's button and went "all." This race seems entirely chaotic to me. Bear Now is the field's lone graded stakes-winner and her Cotillion victory over Octave was huge, but she she may get flambeed early by Peach Flambe and the closers are inches apart on paper.

Race 12: Singled Big Brown. If I get that far, I hope to be getting better than 1-to-5 and I can always make a win bet on Kentucky Bear.

3:05 pm: What's the easiest way to put a 9-5 favorite into the winners' circle? Go seven deep in a race. Heros Reward rerallied in deep stretch to get past 6-1 True to Tradition and continue the chalkfest. Maybe I should start paying attention to those Beyer Speed Figure things: Heros Reward had three triple-digit turf-sprint figs, three times as many as his 10 opponents combined. Heros Reward, a 6-year-old Partner's Hero gelding, ran the five furlongs on the turf in 59.19 for Capuano/Castellano. Heros Reward won the race last year for Capuano/Prado as the 5-2 favorite in 55.90.

4:05 pm: The wind is picking up at Pimlico and there may be some rain before the Preakness. In the meantime, Lantana Mob just became the fourth horse to equal Northern Wolf's 18-year-old track-record of 1:09 when he just got up at the wire to catch Silver Edition in the G3 Hirsch Jacobs for 3-year-olds in 1:09.10. (Races were timed only in fifths at Pimlico prior to 1999.) The son of Posse, trained by Steve Asmussen (who also trained his sire), rallied widest under Robbie Albarado to become the sixth winning favorite in nine races.

The other three horses credited with a 1:09 flat at Pimlico are a pretty nice trio: Diabolical in last year's Maryland Sprint Handicap, Forest Wildcat in the 1996 Hirsch Jacobs, and champion Xtra Heat in the 2001 Straight Deal.

4:40 pm: Finally, a price. Pays to Dream loved the yielding turf, slipped through on the inside, and ran away with the G2 Dixie Stakes at 19-1. It's not clear that anyone else ran his race and Shakis completely floundered as the favorite, finishing fifth. Pays to Dream needed 1:54.74 to cover the boggy nine furlongs but finished with a fast final furlong of 11.84 after trailing early behind fractions of 26.36, 51.71 and 1:16.24. Stay Close held second with Ra Der Dean third.

Pays to Dream, a 4-year-old New York-bred gelding trained by David Donk, races for the December Hill Farm started by the late Allan Dragone, the former chairman of NYRA. Dragone's son, Christopher, is at this moment the President of Pimlico but according to published reports will not retain that position past this weekend.

Dead in the pick-6 here, but alive for what could be some nice pick-fours. All in the DuPont to Big Brown and Kentucky Bear.

Through 10 races, Preakness Day handle is down 10 percent against last year after being down 22 percent after five races. Some bigger fields, and repositioning of the stakes races, seems to account the closing of the gap.

5:35 pm: Still haven't seen the DuPont Distaff, which fell between the cracks of television coverage as ESPN and NBC presented their back-to-back "industry crisis" roundtables. Apparently Larry Jones trainee Buy The Barrel won and paid $8.00 after a mile and a sixteenth in 1:42.43. I'm a little surprised the race went slower than Roman Emperor's 1:42.10 in the Barbaro.

Presumably runner-up Lexi Star, 20-1 on the morning line, would have been a better pick-4 result for me. Even with a 3-1 shot, they're paying $1,182 to Big Brown and $18,649 to Kentucky Bear. May the best horse win.

7:00 pm: The best horse won, and how. When Big Brown spurted away from his rivals at the top of the stretch, the overhead camera view showed him striding so much longer and running so much faster than his rivals that he seemed to take flight. He probably could have won by a lot more than 5 1/4 lengths had he been fully asked or extended in the final furlong, the way Funny Cide and Smarty Jones did with their double-digit margins, but Kent Desormeaux wisely peeked back and wrapped up, already thinking ahead to the Belmont.

The next one will probably be tougher, with the extra quarter mile, the intriguing Casino Drive, and some freshened up Derby challengers taking another shot. But right now Big Brown is in a world of his own among the 3-year-olds of 2008.

Macho Again turned the $2.40 winner into a $36.60 exacta, and adding New York-bred Icabad Crane for third got you a $336.80 trifecta. Racecar Rhapsody completed a $2364.40 superfecta. Big Brown completed a $415.80 pick-3, a $1,182 pick-4 and a $7726.80 pick-6. (All payoffs are in $2 prices.)

Wagering for the day was down 15 percent on both the full card and the Preakness itself. Preakness wagering declined from $56.4 million in 2007 to $47.9 million today, an $8.5 million decline. For the 13-race card, the drop was $12.5 million, from $83.6 million to $71.1 million.

Big Brown's winning time of 1:54.80 is probably not going to come up a particularly fast figure, but it's worth remembering that he was taken under a strong hold while waiting for Riley Tucker to clear him down the backstretch, and geared down at the end. The time will not reflect his utter dominance of his opponents, albeit a weak group.

Twenty-one days till the Belmont.

Posted by Steven Crist on May 17, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (72)

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Crist Blog | May 16, 2008

Preakness Eve

Here are the Friday exit-poll numbers on the Preakness: The Pimlico Special/Preakness daily-double will-pays, their equivalent win odds, and the advance-betting win-pool odds:

The Special/Preakness double handled $345,902, while the advance win pool was only $90,566, so the double equivalents may be more telling. Let's use those prices to see, just for fun, how the race might be being bet if we remove Big Brown from the equation entirely:

7-2 Gayego
9-2 Kentucky Bear
6-1 Racecar Rhapsody
7-1 Yankee Victor
9-1 Giant Moon, Hey Byrn
10-1 Macho Again, Icabad Crane, Riley Tucker
17-1 Stevil
22-1 Tres Borrachos

Tres Borrachos is looking like a lock for Longest of the Long, at 75-1 in the double-equivalents and 99-1 (or higher) in the early win pool. No Preakness starter has gone off at higher than 40-1 since Song of the Sword was 51-1 in 2004. He finished 9th of 10 behind Smarty Jones, two weeks after finishing 11th as the Longest of the Long in the Derby at 55-1.

--Apparently no horse will ever go off at more than 88-1 at Pimlico. Those were the odds Friday on Double Blossom in the The Very One Stakes, and it is hard to imagine a horse ever having less chance of winning a horse race than Double Blossom did today.

Double Blossom came into The Very One against stakes horses not merely a maiden but a loser of her only two starts by a combined 118 1/4 lengths -- 42 1/2 in her debut last summer and 75 3/4 in her return last month at Pimlico. On Friday she of course trailed at every call, and was beaten "only" 32 lengths. Her trainer is 0 for 32 over the last five years, and 10 of his starters have finished dead last in those races.

--The soggy Friday card at Pimlico featured some good racing and generous payoffs. The all-stakes pick four was too tough (CCAA) for me but paid $6472.20 (better than double the $3,036 parlay) for the not-impossible combination of Termsofengagement ($11.20), Student Council ($16.40), All Giving ($7.60) and Sweet Vendetta ($17.40). The Black-Eyed Susan intrarace exotics also were high, with the Sweet Vendetta (7-1)/She's All Eltish(3-1)/Seattle Smooth(3-1) trifecta somehow paying $514.20 for $2 in a field with just seven betting interests.

Nonody picked six but they only spent $14,675 trying, so there's a $9,220 carryover for the $1 minimum-bet pool on Preakness Day.

First post Saturday is 10:30 a.m. ET. The first stakes race, the G3 Maryland Sprint Handicap, is at 11:28 and the early pick four starts with the fourth race at 12:04. Network coverage begins at 11 a.m. on ESPN2, switches to ESPN from noon to 4:30, and then NBC takes over from 4:30 to 6:30. I'll put some thoughts on the card up in the morning and start live-blogging here starting at noon.

Posted by Steven Crist on May 16, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (11)

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45 Late Scratches

There are 45 late scratches so far on the rain-soaked Black-Eyed Susan/Pimlico Special card today in Baltimore. Maybe scheduling six grass races for the second-biggest day of the year at Pimlico was not such a great idea. All have been moved to the main track, including the Woodlawn and The Very One. So here's what's left of the all-stakes pick-4 (which I'll update with results during the day:)

The rain, scratches and surface switches have altered the complexion of the first three races in the sequence:

Race 9 (Woodlawn): Now at 1 1/16 miles on the main track, the Woodlawn had been a two-horse race on paper between graded stakes-winners Hatta Fort and Prussian, both scratched along with Hugo. It now looks like there may be a legit heavy favorite in Malibu Kid, the only one of the remaining six starters to have even run in a stakes race this year. He and MJ's Enchanteur are the only entrants who have exceeded Beyers of 75, both with three races in the 80-to-85 range to their credit.

Race 10 (Pimlico Special): The scratch of Wanderin Boy and the wet track make a race that seemed sure to melt down late a lot more wide open. Favorites A.P. Arrow and Grasshopper are the most accomplished entrants, but the former returns from a race in Dubai seven weeks ago and the latter has never raced on a wet track (though he's bred to handle it well.) I was going to take a big shot with 20-1 ML Xchanger here before the rain, but given how poorly he ran in Monmouth slop in the BC Dirt Mile, I'll probably make only a token insanity-insurance bet on him if he stays in.

Race 11 (The Very One): The two logical favorites on turf (Smart and Fancy and Cat On a Cloud) stayed in. The former ran her career-best race against Oprah Winney in the slop, but the latter appears better on turf. The other filly who now deserves consideration is 15-1 ML All Giving, who is 3 for 3 on wet tracks.

Race 12 (Black-Eyed Susan): I'm playing against 9-5 ML favorite Bsharpsonata, a gritty filly who handles slop but who has yet to win beyond a mile on the dirt and who may be headed in the wrong direction. While she ran against a much stronger field in the Oaks last time, she got an easy lead through soft fractions and tired. Instead I'll try Highest Class, She's All Eltish and a little Sweet Vendetta.

Coverage is scheduled to run from 3:30 to 6 pm ET on ESPN2.

Posted by Steven Crist on May 16, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (8)

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Crist Blog | May 14, 2008

Preakness: First Peek

--The past performances for Preakness day are up, and here's the lineup:

Personally, I am delighted at the way the pick-4's landed, with both the $250k-guaranteed early one and the $1 million-guaranteed late one ducking the Old Mutual Turf Sprint Stakes, given my ineptitude at handicapping five-furlong grass races.

There are tris, supers and rolling doubles on all races and the minimum bet for everything -- including both supers and the pick-6 -- is $1.

--Preakness picks for Saturday newspaper were due at 7 p.m. I went: Big Brown, Kentucky Bear, Gayego, Macho Again.

--Commenter george_quinn asked why Calder's Saturday feature, the $36k Champali Stakes, is named for the racehorse Champali, who won 11 of 22 starts and $1.07 million from 2002-2004. I couldn't figure out his connection to Calder either until I called up his past performances:

Download Champali.pdf

Champali made 17 of his 22 starts in Kentucky. His longest road trip was for his one race at Calder, where he won the $500k G3 Smile Sprint Handicap on July 10, 2004.

Extra Credit: Champali won a four-horse photo in the Smile over Clock Stopper, Built Up and....a horse who made his 58th career start 13 days ago at Belmont. Can you name the 9-year-old, who was claimed out of his third-place finish in the May 1 race for $50k? (Answer below.)

--Here's a long press note distributed by the Maryland Jockey Club Wednesday afternoon that probably won't get too much exposure in its entirety amid all the coverage of the Preakness entries and draw:

Hall of Fame trainer Nick Zito drove into Pimlico Wednesday morning
around 9 a.m., several hours before the scheduled van arrival of his 19th
Preakness starter, Stevil. He brought with him a message about the
burgeoning issue of synthetic surfaces vs. the traditional dirt tracks, like
those at Pimlico and Churchill Downs.

“I made some statements about the synthetic tracks, and the one thing I
needed to address and get across is that our family and our owners daily
basically rescue horses,’’ Zito said. “The Hancocks have a horse shelter
that they put together. Kim, my wife, was involved along with a lot of other
great people. What we do in our stable, all my owners from John Hettinger
down, is we’re rescuing horses and saving horses’ lives, supposedly doing
the right things for horses. Because I speak out on the synthetic surfaces,
it’s not because we never want to protect horses.’’

Zito said he still believes that dirt tracks, with a little research and
development, remain a preferable alternative to synthetics, which have been
widely implemented nationally and also are under consideration for study by
other groups like the New York Racing Association (Belmont, Aqueduct and
Saratoga Race Course).

“As you know, I’m a dirt-track guy,’’ he told a group of media members
outside the Preakness Stakes Barn. “The issue with Eight Belles (who broke
down after finishing second in the Kentucky Derby and was euthanized) is
going to come up over and over this week. You know just as well as I do, or
better, it’s more than the tracks. My thing right now is to try to protect
the dirt surfaces as good as we can.’’

Zito said he did some personal research on the recent Oaklawn Park meeting,
where from some 4,600 starters, there were only five breakdowns (one a
7-year-old, one a 9-year-old) during the meeting that went from Jan. 18 to
April 11 – a 30 percent drop from last season.

“They resurfaced the track this winter,’’ Zito said. “They also installed an
on-site soil analysis lab. They lost just three days of racing (that were
weather related). Zito said the entire cost of the resurface and lab
operation was roughly $100,000 – a significantly lower number than the $50
million NYRA officials had given a local publication when estimating the
cost of going synthetic on its three tracks.

“We have a big issue protecting these horses,’’ said Zito, who said he and
several colleagues were concerned that the synthetic surfaces might tend to
produce future generations of thoroughbreds with turf proclivities and
reduced dirt-track abilities. “If (Oaklawn) can do something like that with
that least (amount of ) money, there should be more research into dirt. I’m
here to protect the game. We’re in American racing, not in English racing or
French racing. If you go to all synthetics, there’s a good possibility
you’ll be racing in England and France.’’

Zito also said there’s not enough research regarding soundness as it
pertains to synthetics vs. dirt at this time. He also said that famed
acupuncturist Dr. Marvin Cain has detected some physical issues
(particularly in the hind quarters) with certain horses he’s treated for
Zito after they have performed on synthetic tracks, referring to it as
Polytrack Syndrome.

Cain examined both Cool Coal Man and Stevil after the Blue Grass on
Keeneland’s Polytrack and found the former had a physical reaction after
the race, while Stevil did not. Stevil finished fourth, Cool Coal Man was
ninth.

“It’s not an exact science, but one horse (Cool Coal Man) didn’t like the
Polytrack and had some issues in behind,’’ Zito said. “The other horse
cleared perfectly. The horse is the main thing. We want to preserve the
game.’’

--Answer to extra-credit question: The fourth-place finisher was My Cousin Matt, best known for finishing third at 60-1 to Speightstown and Kela in the 2004 Breeders' Cup Sprint four starts later -- a race in which Champali ran 7th. My Cousin Matt was claimed May 1 from longtime owner Richard Englander and trainer Bruce Levine by owner-trainer David Jacobson.

Posted by Steven Crist on May 14, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (30)

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Early Adjudicating

If you wanted to bet or watch the return of Ready's Image in today's featured Adjudicating Stakes at Belmont and assumed it was the eighth race, you'll miss it by nearly three hours. The five-horse field will go as the third race, with a scheduled post of 2:04 p.m.

If I thought Ready's Image was going to be as high as his 8-5 morning-line price, I'd wait until 2:00 and make a rare win bet on a favorite. I think this is a seriously talented horse and a legit Grade 1 sprinter, who ran faster at 2 than his rivals have at 3. He hasn't been out since October, when he suffered a knee chip as the 5-2 second choice in the Champagne, but has bullet workouts over three different tracks among his recent strong works. I expect him to win, but I also expect he'll be closer to 3-5 than his 8-5 ML price.

How to improve on that? I don't have a crushable exacta in mind, and the early pick-4 is out because the Adjudicating is followed by an impossible turf sprint. So instead I'm going to fool around with the new pick-three on races 1-2-3. The 2-3-4 sequence used to be the first pick-3 of the day at NYRA tracks, to prevent conflict with the daily double, but a 1-2-3 bet was added when Belmont opened April 30. It was a pretty well-kept secret, as the opening-day pool was only $16,060, but by the 10th day of the meeting Sunday, the pool was up to $54k.

I'm interested in the 1-2-3 sequence because I think the favorites are vulnerable in the first two legs. In the opener, Western Sweep takes a suspicious drop off a six-month layoff. I'll try to beat her with Pu Dew, Wildbutable, Reyana's Jet and Wundelia. In the second, the three favorites --Sacred Icon, Sapphire Eyes and Cool Tales -- are all pace-pressers stretching out and iffy at the distance. So I'll try three clunk-up longshots against them: Run Lightening Run (15-1), Tomlinson Hill (8-1) and Bishop's Creek (12-1). It's primarily a 4x3x1 pick-three play that I hope will turn a morning-line 8-5, and likely post-time 4-5, into 5-1 or better.

Update 1:04 pm: Argggh. Right idea, wrong horse. Got 2-1 ML fave Western Sweep off the board but ran 2-3-4 behind 7-1 Tzipi. Going to be pretty tough to get 5-1 on my $280 play now:

$20 pick-3: 2,4,5,7/5,6,7/2 =$240
$ 4 pick-3: 3,6/5,6,7/2 = $24
$ 4 pick-3: 2,4,5,7/3/2 = $16

Update 1:36 pm: Never mind.

Update 2:15 pm; Shoulda just taken the $3.90 to win on Ready's Image. The 1-2-3 pick-3 paid quite well -- nearly 50 percent over the $158.30 parlay at $232.50 for a $16.40/$9.90/$3.90 sequence. Turns out you could have improved $3.90 to $4.10 with an all/all/Ready's Image.

Can't say I was wowed by his performance, albeit his first start in seven months. Last down the backstretch, he found a seam and gradually wore down the tiring leaders, who dueled through a half in 44.68, to win by just under a length in 1:16.68. (Tzipi, whose usually runs Beyers in the low-to-mid 70's, won the first race in 1:17.94.) This was supposed to be a springboard for Ready's Image to the G1 Woody Stephens (formerly Riva Ridge) on the Belmont Stakes undercard, but he'll have to improve off today's effort to win it.

Posted by Steven Crist on May 14, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (14)

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Crist Blog | May 12, 2008

Odds-on in the Preakness

Here's a straw to grasp at if you're trying to beat Big Brown in the Preakness Saturday: He'll probably be the 15th odds-on Preakness favorite in the last 50 years, and 8 of the previous 14 lost -- including 5 of the last 6.

Here's how those 14, who ranged in price from 1-to-10 on Spectacular Bid in 1979 to 9-10 on Honest Pleasure in 1976, fared:

Note that Derby winners were 6-for-10 as odds-on Preakness favorites over the last 50 years. All four times that a horse other than the Derby winner was odds-on, he lost: Derby runners-up Easy Goer, Honest Pleasure and Hill Rise, and Derby-skipper Linkage.

A $2 win bet on all 14 odds-on Preakness favorites since 1957 would have cost $28 and returned $17.20, a 38.6 % loss on investment.

Posted by Steven Crist on May 12, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (39)

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