Weekend Winners Club

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Thursday, May 16, 2018. Pimlico Park. Pimlico’s big weekend of the year, which we always fear may be their last, is getting underway on Friday with the Black Eyed Susan, Miss Preakness, Distaff, and my favorite, the Pimlico Special, inaugurated at the 1938 match race between Seabiscuit and War Admiral.
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But everyone wants to hear about the Preakness Stakes on Saturday right? You’ve come to the right place. Other outfits are scrambling to find their champion, not having a Kentucky Derby champion, real or by DQ, to rely on and hype up, as if they’re providing some kind of insight.
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After all, a front end running Kentucky Derby champion wins the Preakness every time except when coached by Todd Pletcher. And this year, we have not the real nor the fake Derby champion running in this leg, because it’s not worth it for either to do so, especially the real champion who was injured by a horse running again here.
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The 1st part of this all-inclusive analytical study is how Kentucky Derby horses have historically fared in the Preakness, which is still relevant because there are 4 such horses in the field of 13. How have Derby entrants fared before? According to the chart below, they’ve done very well.
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You can see that the Derby winner finishes well, which is irrelevant this year. Also that the rest of the Derby top 4 normally finish well here, which is also somewhat irrelevant unless you count Improbable’s 4th place finish by DQ. Such horse rarely runs in the Preakness, but normally finish well.
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The next graphic tells a more complete story, especially as it relates to this year when the Derby top 4 are missing from the race. Here are the Preakness top 4 in the Baffert Era:
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In every single year (18 of 22) that the Preakness winner had also run in the Kentucky Derby, the winner had run top 6 in the Derby. So Improbable, the highest Derby runner at 4 or 5 depending on how you see it, is your champion right? Probably, not for certain, but it would be Improbable for him to not run top 4.
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Also, all of the 25 2nd and 3rd place runners that were Derby entrants, except for 2, were top 7 in the Kentucky Derby. Quick review on who the Derby entrants are this year:
1 War of Will 8th
4 Improbable 5th
9 Bodexpress 14th
13 Win Win win 10th
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Because of the stats we showed above, all of these are fairly good candidates to finish in the money in the Preakness, despite their Derby finish. Why? Because the Kentucky Derby is the field with the best classic distance 3yo’s, not the Preakness. But only 1 of them is a win candidate: Improbable. The others have a chance, as listed below.
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At this point we need to look at the other 9 horses that make up the majority of the field and combine them since statistically they will make up likely 2-3 of the top 4 finishers. Let’s go ahead and comment on the preferred horses and rank them in order of their preference.
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4 Improbable (RAN, Baffert). This is an excellent candidate to win the Preakness. He’s top in the Grid in power and 2nd in Stamina and LP, he’s from RAN sireline (13 of past 21 Preakness winners) and he’s coached by Baffert (7 of past 22).
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7 Alwaysmining (API, Kelley Rubley). We’ve been high on this horse all year, as he’s been prepping for this race all year, in stellar fashion. He’s won 6 straight races at Laurel, the last 5 of which were stakes races, the last 3 of which were at a mile or longer. Last out he blew away a stakes field at 9f by 11 lengths. If the Preakness was at Laurel like it probably should be, I’d have crowned him champ already. He’s first in Speed and 2nd in Power in the Grid.
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9 Bodexpress (RAN, G. Delgado). The horse appears to be inconsistent on paper, but if you look at the inconsistencies, it was his first race out, and 2 races in the mud, including the Derby. Other than that, all of his PF’s are in the 90s. His last race near this distance was 2nd in the Fla Derby G1, just 3.5 lengths back from Ky Derby winner Maximum Security. Excellent ITM candidate and great odds.
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2 Bourbon War (API, Mark Hennig). We need to include a late runner in this superfecta, so why not go with the top LP and Stamina rating? We’ve been hyping this horse for months as the top LP but fact is, he didn’t make the Kentucky Derby after running 4th in the Fla Derby.
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12 Anothertwistafate (SCAT, Blaine Wright). It’s hard to ignore this horse who is both consistently fast up front and good overall. He was 2nd in two G3’s before this and won the El Camino Derby before that. He’s top 5 in all categories across the board in the Grid.
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3 Warrior’s Charge (RAN, Brad Cox). The only thing I like better than a fresh triple crown race contender in this race, is a winner, and this horse is both. I doubt he can win but he’s improving and can do very well and even finish in the money.
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In this case it seems like the only official key horse is Improbable, but I consider all of these to be key at certain positions. Anything can happen in this type of race, so I will be wheeling some horses at the bottom of the superfecta and probably the tri as well. Here are the extra wheel horses to use.
Owendale, Signalman, Laughing Fox, Win Win Win.
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Horses that should not be used:
Weak of Will, Market Ding, Everleast
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So there you have it, the top runners will be a mix of Derby and non Derby entrants and some of each to choose from. Unfortunately, the ML oddsmaker agrees with me on 3 of my top 5. But they disagree on some others, and hopefully the public will keep Weak of Will’s odds low because he’s a great throwout.
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How does one arrive at such a conclusion? It’s simple, we used the historical stats above, and also The Grid which gives us Performance Figures as well as composites. It looks something like this.
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If you want the Grid for all the races at Pimlico, as well, as every race day for Belmont, Churchill, Keeneland, Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Del Mar, Saratoga, and other major tracks and race days as well, click here to see how easy it is to get it.
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