Total commingled betting on the Preakness Stakes at Laurel Park on Saturday was “down 8 percent compared to strong betting on the race last year.” The $61.9M bet this year, including all multi-race wagers ending in the Preakness, was well short of last year’s $67.3M, the second-highest amount bet on the second leg of the Triple Crown. For both this year’s Preakness and last year’s Preakness, the winner of the Kentucky Derby skipped the race. The Preakness this year had an “extremely competitive field,” but the field “lacked any national star power” (DAILY RACING FORM, 5/16). The race was won by Napoleon Solo by 1 1/4 lengths for trainer Chad Summers, owner Al Gold and jockey Paco Lopez. Iron Honor finished second by 3 1/4 lengths over Chip Honcho. Napoleon Solo was injured earlier in the spring and had not raced since a fifth-place finish in the Wood Memorial. Summers said that the decision to run in the Preakness came “after ’300 to 400 phone calls’” (DAILY RACING FORM, 5/16).
Attendance was capped at 4,800 at Laurel, making a far different experience for the Preakness. The race is scheduled to return to Pimlico next year. In Baltimore, Kyle Goon wrote, “The dominant characteristic of the 151st Preakness was space. There was a ton of it. ... The only thing at full capacity were the prices. Looking at $220 parking and $22 cocktails, you would have never known this was the off-brand year for the Preakness” (BALTIMORE BANNER, 5/17). BLOODHORSE’s Sean Collins wrote, “Pimlico is currently in the process of a rebuild, an event that has been patiently waited for many years as the grandstand severely decayed. For Maryland racing, it will hope that patience will pay off with a rejuvenation of the iconic middle jewel of the Triple Crown” (BLOODHORSE, 5/16).
As SBJ reported in April, the Preakness is set to move to a week later on the racing calendar, which would mean three weeks after the Kentucky Derby instead of the traditional two. The broadcast home of the race also could change, with NBC Sports in the final years of its contract.
Donna Brothers, the former champion jockey who joined NBC Sports in 2000 to work as the track reporter for coverage of the Triple Crown races and Breeders’ Cup World Championships, made the “rider’s up” call at the Preakness in her final assignment for NBC.
