Weekend Winners Club

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Wednesday, May 18
Pimlico Race Course
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The Preakness draw that nobody saw outside of the Pimlico facility, has taken place, and the contenders are now equipped with post positions and morning lines.
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Preakness.com posted earlier this week that drf.com would host a live stream of the Preakness post position draw, but apparently drf.com didn’t get the message. There was not a single link anywhere on the public internet to the live stream.
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So, in case you missed it…
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Kentucky Derby champion Nyquist drew the 3 post, with speedy Uncle Lino just inside of him, and not so Awesome Speed to the outside of him. He will almost certainly let them battle for the lead up front with the other 2-3 that like to be on the lead.
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Prg	Contender	Odds	Last	Race	Sire	Trainer	Jockey
1	Cherry Wine	20-1	3rd	Blue Grass Stakes	Paddy O’Prado	Romans Dale	Lanerie Corey
2	Uncle Lino	20-1	1st	California Chrome	Uncle Mo	Sherlock Gary	Perez Fernando
3	Nyquist	3-5	1st	Kentucky Derby	Uncle Mo	O’Neill Doug	Gutierrez Mario
4	Awesome Speed	30-1	1st	Federico Tesio (by DQ)	Awesome Again	Goldberg Alan E	Toledo Jevian
5	Exaggerator	3-1	2nd	Kentucky Derby	Curlin	Desormeaux J Keith	Desormeaux K J
6	Lani	30-1	9th	Kentucky Derby	Tapit	Matsunaga Mikio	Take Y
7	Collected	10-1	1st	Lexington Stakes	City Zip	Baffert Bob	Castellano Jj
8	Laoban	30-1	4th	Blue Grass Stakes	Uncle Mo	Guillot Eric	Geroux Florent
9	Abiding Star	30-1	1st	Parx Derby	Uncle Mo	Allard Edward T	Acosta J D
10	Fellowship	30-1	4th	Pat Day Mile	Awesome Of Course	Casse Mark	Lezcano Jose
11	Stradivari	8-1	1st	Allowance race 62k	Medaglia D’Oro	Pletcher Todd A	Velazquez J R

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Nyquist remains the 3-5 favorite as he was in the early lines, with Exaggerator moving down to 3-1. Stradivari and Collected, which we covered in detail in our early Preakness analysis, are 8-1 and 10-1. The other long shot special we mentioned was Uncle Lino, now 20-1.
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Analysis at this point is that there’s a lot of speed in this race and several good closers, and almost nothing in between, other than Nyquist, who is a front runner himself at times, but certainly won’t be dueling with all this speed for an early lead.
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Collected will rate from somewhat off the pace as well. Exaggerator was categorized as a presser the first 7 races of his career, holding within a few lengths of the early pace, but the last 3 races have been a different story since his following a length back to Nyquist’s blistering fractions in the 7f San Vicente stakes in February.
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Exaggerator was off the pace by 8 and 13 lengths in his last 2 Derby preps, and then 17 lengths back in the Derby. The Desormeux brothers will likely run him a bit earlier this time, but only because it’s harder to make up ground late at Pimlico, not because there’s a lack of speed.
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The Preakness Grid here shows you all the running styles and performance figures.
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Download Preakness Grid with ML odds here
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After all the dueling up front between Abiding Star, Uncle Lino, Stradivari, and Laoban, the horses that will emerge on top are Nyquist and Exaggerator, and most likely in that order.
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After that, it’s probable that Stradivari, Uncle Lino, and Collected could hold on to a piece of the pie, but at least one of them will likely be passed by a quality closer such as Fellowship, Lani, or Cherry Wine.
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There is currently a strong change of rain predicted for Baltimore on Saturday, and the track will be sealed if that happens. In that case, Exaggerator would really like it, and it would also give an edge to Abiding Star to finish in the money.
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Obtain full race day grids for Pimlico Friday and Saturday here.

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