The 149th Preakness Stakes takes place on Saturday from Pimlico Race Course. It’s the second leg of the Triple Crown and features a diverse field of contenders looking to dethrone Kentucky Derby champion Mystik Dan.
The race will take place at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, and it’s been held at that racetrack continuously since 1909, with the inaugural Preakness of 1873 also being contested at the famed track.
This year’s Preakness Stakes, which will be contested by 3-year-old thoroughbreds over 1 3/16 miles, boasts an eight-horse field after the morning-line favorite, Muth, was scratched on Wednesday due to a fever.
Even with his absence, the race has some extra spice with the largest purse in the history of the event. The prize pool increased from $1.5 million to $2 million, and with Muth’s absence, it’s the Kentucky Derby-winning Mystik Dan who is generating the most interest. He won at Churchill Downs two weeks earlier in a photo finish and now has his sights set on The Middle Jewel of the Triple Crown. Not since eventual Triple Crown champion Justify in 2018 has a horse won both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, with last year’s Derby winner, Mage, finishing third at the Preakness.
Mystik Dan came out of nowhere to win the Derby, as he was one of 11 horses in the field with odds of 20-1 or shorter. That isn’t the case at Pimlico, where he’s now the favored horse, and history is basically split on the favorite horse winning this race. Over the 149 previous races (as the 1918 race was run in two divisions), the favorite has won 73 times and lost 76 times. That’s a 49 percent win rate, which certainly won’t help bettors but is actually much higher than the overall win rate in the sport. Across all horse races in a given year, the favorite prevails roughly 35 percent of the time, so the Preakness favorite has had better success on average.
Mystik Dan is trained by Kenneth McPeek, who has a previous Preakness win in 2020. However, he will be standing beside two trainers on the Preakness Mount Rushmore in Bob Baffert and D. Wayne Lukas. The former won the 2023 Preakness for his eighth win at this event—the most in history. Lukas isn’t far behind with six wins of his own, making Baffert and Lukas the two winningest living trainers in Preakness history.
Baffert suffered a huge loss as he was saddling Muth, but he has another in his stable with Imagination in this year’s field. The latter qualified for the Kentucky Derby but was unable to compete due to Baffert’s lingering suspension from Churchill Downs. Imagination has collected two victories over his six career starts, but the other four finishes were all runners-up—three of which came by a neck. The horse also has the type of pedigree that makes trainers and jockeys swoon as his sire, or father, was a Graded Stakes I winner— which is the highest classification of thoroughbred races, while Imagination’s damsire, or his maternal grandfather, was a Triple Crown race winner back in his day by winning the 2008 Belmont Stakes.
As for Lukas, he’s giving himself multiple opportunities to close the gap between himself and Baffert. The 88-year-old is the only trainer with multiple horses in the Preakness field with Seize The Grey and Just Steel. Apart from Mystik Dan, Seize The Grey is the only horse in this year’s Preakness who is actually coming off a victory as he won a different race at Churchill Downs as part of the Kentucky Derby undercard.
He also got the luck of the draw in terms of post positions, as he drew the No. 6 post for Saturday. That spot has produced the most Preakness winners (17), which is three more than any other post. It also has the best win percentage of any post (15 percent), and it’s three victors since 2000 are also tied for the most over that span.
Meanwhile, Lukas’ other colt in Just Steel had a terribly disappointing 17th-place finish at the Kentucky Derby but has an ace up his sleeve in that he’s the son of Justify. Having your sire as the last Triple Crown winner brings confidence to the horse’s connections, and the timing of Just Steel going for a Preakness win is highly convenient.
Justify will be inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame in August, so inscribers may want to hold off on finishing his plaque, as siring the 2024 Preakness Stakes winner would undoubtedly be a part of it.
The rest of the 2024 Preakness Stakes field includes Mugatu, who has just one win in 12 starts, Uncle Heavy, who is ridden by five-time Jockey of the Year winner, Irad Ortiz Jr., Catching Freedom, who is saddled by two-time Trainer of the Year winner, Brad Cox, and Tuscan Gold, who is the only contender with both a jockey and trainer who have previously won this race.
The 2024 Preakness Stakes will go to post at 7:01 p.m. ET and will be broadcast on NBC. Three weeks after the race, Triple Crown season comes to a close with the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, June 8, from Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, New York.
