The 148th Preakness Stakes will take place at Pimlico Race Course on May 20, with post time at 7:01 p.m. on NBC. It is a 1 3/16-mile race for 3-year-old colts that serves as the middle jewel of the Triple Crown. Here is this year’s field:
| Post Position | Horse | Jockey | Odds |
| 1 | National Treasure | John Velazquez | 4-1 |
| 2 | Chase the Chaos | Sheldon Russell | 50-1 |
| 3 | Mage | Javier Castellano | 8-5 |
| 4 | Coffeewithchris | Jaime Rodriguez | 20-1 |
| 5 | Red Route One | Joel Rosario | 10-1 |
| 6 | Perform | Feargal Lynch | 15-1 |
| 7 | Blazing Sevens | Irad Ortiz Jr. | 6-1 |
| 8 | First Mission | Luis Saez | 5-2 |
NBC Triple Crown race caller Larry Collmus, Mage owner Ramiro Restrepo and local jockey Sheldon Russell all joined Glenn Clark Radio recently to discuss the top storylines heading into the Preakness.
Kentucky Derby winner Mage is the Preakness favorite. He had only run three times prior to his win at Churchill Downs, but put together a stirring victory in the Kentucky Derby. There’s actually a local connection here, stemming from when Ramiro Restrepo purchased the colt for $290,000 this time last year.
Ramiro Restrepo: Outside of Baltimore in Timonium, the sales company Fasig-Tipton holds a 2-year-old horse sale every May, and it’s during this exact Preakness week to kind of take advantage of the critical mass of people that are already in town for the race, kind of just capitalize on that momentum.
It’s basically like an NFL Combine that the horses are run through. They run a [breeze] and they’re put through physical and medical exams and a pseudo-interview process to put up on your Mel Kiper big board. Myself and my business partner Gustavo Delgado Jr., who’s the assistant trainer as well, we’ve been working together for about three years now, trying to raise his profile as a trainer and my profile as what we call a bloodstock agent, which is like the general manager of a sports team, per se. We work the sale. You go look at all these potential prospects.
… You start immediately looking at the offerings, the catalog where all these prospects are in the sale and you start filtering out what you won’t be able to afford based on how fast their [breeze] was, and by their bloodlines and their previous purchase prices because some of them are being put in the sale as re-sales from when they were younger. We came up with a big board of a handful of horses. He was at the top of the list. We waited for him to go into the ring and off we went bidding. He went a little over budget, but things work out.
The other seven horses in the field are “new shooters,” meaning they did not run in the Kentucky Derby. First Mission, National Treasure and Blazing Sevens have the next-best odds after Mage. Which of those colts has the best shot to win the Preakness?
Larry Collmus: First Mission I think is the strongest of that group. He, like Mage, has only had three starts. Mage only had three coming up on the Derby. This guy has only has three as well. He’s [posted] some pretty good numbers. I think he’s got a really, really good shot of having the right running style. I think he’s got a legitimate shot the way the race sets up of being able to beat Mage. National Treasure, [trained by Bob Baffert], just hasn’t done quite enough to make me excited, but you never know. He’s back in Bob’s hands. Bob is as good as it gets in the business, so maybe we’ll see some improvement from National Treasure.
… Bob has not been allowed to run in the last two runnings of the Kentucky Derby. As far as I know, he’s OK for next year now. But he’s allowed to run in the Preakness, so he’s got this horse National Treasure who he has been the trainer of, but because the horse was getting ready for the Kentucky Derby, they needed to get him out of Baffert’s barn in order to be eligible to run in the Derby. He went to Tim Yakteen, who trained him leading up to the Kentucky Derby, which he never really made. When they decided not to run him in the Derby, they gave him back to Bob Baffert and here he is in Bob’s care for the Preakness.
Three Maryland-based riders will have mounts in the Preakness: Feargal Lynch, Jaime Rodriguez and Sheldon Russell. Russell will ride aboard long shot Chase the Chaos and is thrilled for the chance to take part in such a big race on one of his home tracks.
Sheldon Russell: I’ve just been given a huge opportunity. We mainly race at Laurel. We come over to Pimlico while we hold the Preakness Stakes. Just to be given the opportunity to ride in the biggest race here in Maryland on the biggest stage, I’m hugely grateful and just really looking forward to the day. … Being on a track that you’ve rode and you’ve had some success on, yeah, I’m comfortable here. I’ve ridden in a lot of races here. Hopefully it plays a small little part. Like I said, I’m just hugely grateful for the opportunity. I’m grateful they gave one of the local lads [a chance]. I think there are three of us in the field that have a mount in the race, so that’s kind of cool. Just hoping for a bit of luck and hopefully this horse will run well for us.
For more from Collmus, listen to the full interview here:
For more from Restrepo, listen to the full interview here:
For more from Russell, listen to the full interview here:
Photo Credit: Mitch Stringer/PressBox