136th Preakness Stakes

The middle jewel of the Triple Crown, and that only matters if one particular horse wins the 136th Preakness today. No wonder Maryland Racing has fallen on hard times, because of the overblown hype connected with horse racing, and its extraneous information overload, it is like this is the only race that takes place in Maryland. I wonder what percentage of the American public knows that there is other horse racing in Maryland.

But, this observation has more to do with the marketing of horse racing, and the geniuses that have held that job for the last 40 years or so. Today is about the Preakness. So, I wade into the sea of overblown hype to offer some slivers of information that hopefully are not extraneous and/or repetitive. Since anyone who cares has received an overload of majesty and pageantry info in connection with the Preakness, I will restrict my brief commentary today to the information pertaining to the betting.

It seems that Animal Kingdom is a legitimate favorite in this race, after running a circle around the Kentucky Derby field, it seems that a win today might be the normal and expected extension of that performance. While the Kentucky Derby performance was simply an extension of the Spiral Stakes. The replay of which I didn't watch, but my daughter did. I was thrilled with how my contenders for the Derby fell into place. Marie had 2 of my 4 on her list, but she also had another, Animal Kingdom.

For the past 16 years, it has been her job to go through the past performances to get the contenders for the Kentucky Derby, it has always then been my job to apply the race day analysis needed to come up with the winner. This has been my way of teaching her to be an analyst, instead of a handicapper. Apparently, she has become a good analyst in her own right. For the first time in five years, the Derby winner appeared on her list, and not mine. She watched the replay of the Spiral Stakes, I didn't.

Last night we both watched all of the replays that I thought were important, and we concurred that Animal Kingdom is the horse to beat today. We also concurred that the most likely candidate that could make that happen, is Flashpoint. The horse that we know the least about, because we are not taking the Florida Derby performance as negative, and then Flashpoint skipped the Derby.

After I went to bed, Marie ran the Ability-X Ratings for Pimlico today, and apparently watched some more replays. This morning I see that Flashpoint came up as the Ability-X Ratings "Simple" pick for the Preakness. while Animal Kindom is the "Key" horse. It all seems very appropriate to me. Last year, the "Key" was Looking at Lucky, and the "Simple" was Super Saver. But, Marie also added another to her list. A one-eyed, hard knocking gelding named Concealed Identity, that undoubtedly also has a bit of sand in his craw.

Exactly the kind of horse that I expected to show up back in April as all of the stars fell from the sky, one by one, before the Kentucky Derby. I feel like it makes an excellent trio for betting purposes. At the very least, these three should make for a good story to come out of this 136th Preakness Stakes.

I'm going to pay close attention to Marie's pre-race analysis later today too.