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BALTIMORE — Ask 100 racetrackers which classic they would rather win, the Kentucky Derby or the Preakness Stakes, and 99 will say the Derby.
But when it comes to crowning champions, tomorrow’s second jewel of the Triple Crown at Pimlico is a much more pivotal race than the first at Churchill Downs.
Each of the past 10 Preakness winners, and 13 of the past 14, was named the 3-year-old champ (including the filly Rachel Alexandra), though just seven of them won the Derby. Four of those Preakness champions were Horse of the Year.
The conclusion is obvious: Though the result of the Derby can leave you scratching your head in wonder, the Preakness is almost always won by the best horse.
“We’re sorting things out a bit more [by the Preakness],” said legendary horseman D. Wayne Lukas, who owns five Preakness trophies. “You had the preps for the Derby and then the Derby, and the pretenders fall by the wayside by the time we get here. Now we’re at the point where you are getting the cream of the crop.”
Retired Hall-of-Fame jockey Gary Stevens, now an analyst for NBC, won the Derby three times and the Preakness twice.
“A lot of the difference [between the two races] is with 20 horses in the Kentucky Derby, there are a lot of bad trips and very few good trips,” Stevens said. “Whereas the Preakness with 14 horses, it’s a lot easier to maneuver around.
“The atmosphere is a lot different. Everybody is more settled in at this point, and you get better trips. The Preakness is always won by a legitimate horse.”
There’s an old saying in racing: If you didn’t attend the wedding, don’t go to the funeral — meaning that if you did not play a horse when he won at long odds, don’t bet him back at a short price.
Some will apply that wisdom to Animal Kingdom, who won the Derby at 20-1 and will go off the favorite tomorrow at 2-1 or less. But Animal Kingdom’s long odds in Kentucky had more to do with the perception that he was a turf/Polytrack specialist trying dirt for the first time, rather than any lack of talent.
“The Derby winner is always the horse to beat here,” said Hall-of-Fame trainer Bob Baffert, whose five Preakness winners included three that won the Derby. “Usually this is the easiest leg [of the Triple Crown]. When a horse wins the Derby, he’s in the zone. He’s peaking.”
Lukas concurred: “There are some horses coming around that could upset things a little, but the Derby winner looked good. And a lot of times when you get one horse that’s really on his game, the rest of them — I hate to use the word mediocre — but it looks like parity has set in.”
Stevens is another Animal Kingdom fan.
“I loved his performance [in the Derby],” he said. “The part I liked about it most is he really only ran an eighth of a mile. Just going into the far turn, it looked like Johnny [Velazquez, his jockey] tested him a bit, and he actually had to tap on the brakes, like, ‘Whoa, I’m loaded here.’
“It’s hard to not pull the trigger at the head of the stretch in the Kentucky Derby, no matter how much horse you have. But Johnny sat, and he waited and waited. He was so patient, I don’t think he cooked him.
“My three Derby winners, I knew they’d been in a horse race. They were tired. I’ve seen a lot of horses in the winner’s circle that looked spent already. But Animal Kingdom looked like, ‘Bring on some more, let’s go do it again.’ “