BALTIMORE — Year in, year out, all you had to do to find the winner of the Preakness Stakes was to check the first three or four favorites in the betting, make sure they last ran in the Kentucky Derby and bingo: your winner would be in there, for sure.
This year’s Preakness, set to go tomorrow, almost assuredly will follow the script. I’ll Have Another, the Derby winner, Bodemeister, who ran second, Went the Day Well, who came in fourth, and Creative Cause, fifth, may not only include the winner, but possibly the exacta and the trifecta, if not the superfecta.
These four horses appear to tower over the field. That’s the easy part. Nominating which of the four will win is the hard part.
In the fall-out after the Derby, one may be forgiven for thinking Bodemeister won it. This flier zoomed out of the gate, whistled off a slew of blistering fractions, only to be collared in the last few yards by I’ll Have Another. The strange thing is that everyone who saw that Derby will remember Bodemeister more vividly than the actual winner.
Because the Preakness is half a furlong shorter than the Derby, many think that this time, I’ll Have Another won’t catch Bodemeister. And therein lies the brimming excitement of the Preakness. It looms a two-horse showdown. Will he or won’t he catch Bodemeister?
That may depend on Bodemeister’s jockey, Mike Smith. If he rides him as he did at Churchill Downs, I’ll Have Another or some other late runner will nail him again. If Smith can settle Bodemeister early into a nice, easy, cruising speed, the others won’t have a prayer.
And that, of course, is on the assumption Bodemeister is not a cooked duck. He has a very thin racing foundation. He did not race as a two-year-old. His last two races — a blowout in the Arkansas Derby, a gut-twister in the Derby — may have knocked the starch out of him. At what point does fatigue set in?
I’ll Have Another, again, is being underrated. He has won three straight graded races, two of them Grade 1’s. Bodemeister has won just one Grade 1 and a maiden. I’ll Have Another has won $2 million, Bodemeister $1 million. I’ll Have Another has a superior profile, but Bodemeister probably will be favored again when they load them in the gate tomorrow.
Creative Cause has a better record than Bodemeister. He has won three graded races and is 4-for-9 against Bodemeister’s 2-for-5. He was poorly ridden in the Derby. He was taken in hand at the start, settled in mid pack, went three wide in the first turn then Joel Rosario angled him so far to the outside on the backstretch that he was eight wide on the home turn.
For all that, he came from 12 lengths out of it to be beaten just three lengths. A better passage tomorrow could put him right in it.
Went the Day Well had an even rougher Derby experience. He was bumped at the jump, repeatedly steadied in the early crowding, found himself shuffled back, went seven wide around the turn, yet got up for fourth, beaten only 2 1/2 lengths. He ran the fastest last quarter of any horse in the Derby, getting it in a tick over 23 seconds.
It’s a stretch to make a case for any other Preakness runner. For years, I always looked for a long shot to upset the favorites only to be burned, time and time again. But habit dies hard, so I’m still shaking the bushes, looking for an upset.
Dale Romans will saddle Cozzetti, whose only win is a maiden at Churchill Downs. But Romans shook the life out of the Preakness two years ago when he unleashed the unsung First Dude, a 23-1 speed monster, who led all the way and was caught only in the last strides by Lookin At Lucky. Last year, he went one better, winning the Preakness with the 12-1 Shackleford.
On Monday, Cozzetti fired a bullet five-furlong work in 58 seconds and change. Romans just might have another surprise packet.
The performance chart expert, Jerry Brown, of Thoro-Graph, is eyeing Zetterholm, who has won three straight and comes from Rick Dutrow Jr’s hot barn in New York.
Then there’s Wayne Lukas, who will saddle Optimizer, whose recent work is poor but he would not be the first Lukas under-achiever to jump out of the woodwork and win at a price. When leading trainers saddle long shots in big races, I always cover.
But history says emphatically, the favorites will win.