Preakness Preview - Don’t Overthink It, Take Big Brown
If you haven’t been paying much attention to the lead up to the second jewel in the Triple Crown, everything you have missed can be summed up like this - There is one very good horse, two that might be alright, and a lot that have no business being in a race of this caliber. In order of preference:
Big Brown - How good is this horse? - he is at 1/2 in the morning line in a 13 horse field. You don’t see that every day. More importantly, those odds seem to pretty much reflect his chances here. He has a decent post position (number 7 - though he won from the 20th hole in the Derby, so the post doesn’t really matter), and this race is totally and absolutely his to lose.If he is even remotely approaching good health then this should be a runaway.
Gayego - This horse captured some imaginations when he won the Arkansas Derby (the same prep race won by Curlin, Smarty Jones, Afleet Alex, Lawyer Ron and others), but he was dismal in the Derby. He ended up 17th and he didn’t look comfortable for even a second during the whole race. If you can pretend that last race never happened then he is intriguing at 8/1. That’s a big if, though. The biggest thing going for him is that he was entered here after his connections previously indicated he would go back to California to rest and regroup. That means he must be in pretty good form.
Behindatthebar - The plus side for this horse is that he is coming of a nice win over a decent field in the Lexington, and he seems to have some talent. The downside is that he is trained by Todd Pletcher. That’s a good thing for every race other than a Triple Crown one. The horse strikes me as good but not good enough. UPDATE: Forget all that - the horse was scratched Friday morning with a ‘foot problem’. I think that that is code for ‘he’s too slow’.
Everyone else - As the saying goes, this is a dog’s breakfast. The other ten horses in this field are all just taking a shot at a big check. There are some moderately talented horses, and I would like several of them a lot if a state-bred stakes race on a Saturday at some anonymous track somewhere, but it is hard to see how any of them have more than a fleeting chance of winning here unless something goes very wrong. All you need to know about the quality is that Kentucky Bear is the fourth choice in the morning line. He has only run three times in his career. He broke his maiden in January, then he was a completely uncompetitive seventh in the Fountain of Youth. He finished third in the Blue Grass, but Monba won that race and was dead last in the Derby. There is not a lot of reason to like this horse, yet the oddsmaker liked him better than anyone else (he is tied with Yankee Bravo). If I had to pick one horse out of this mess it would be Hey Byrn at 20/1, but you won’t see me rushing to the window to bet on him.
