2015 Preakness Stakes Betting Odds

There may be a few bookmakers that set early Preakness Stakes betting odds soon after the Kentucky Derby has been completed but most will wait until the Pimlico Race Course linesmaker sets the ‘morning line’ for the event on the Wednesday before the race.  Unlike the Kentucky Derby the competitive possibilities for the Preakness field is fairly limited and the quick turnaround between the two races makes a futures market unviable.

TOP THREE YEAR OLDS STARTING TO EMERGE

While the field for the Preakness won’t start to take shape until after the Kentucky Derby has been completed, the pecking order among three year old race horses is starting to come into focus.  We can get some idea about which horses to keep an eye on by looking at the contenders for the Kentucky Derby and the results of that race.  Some good horses might not qualify to run in the Derby under the new points system and be targeted for the Preakness instead.  Other horses might have skipped the Derby for competitive reasons.   The field will start to come together very quickly after the Kentucky Derby when the horses that will compete for the Preakness will start to be identified as their connections chart out their races for the rest of the summer.

KENTUCKY DERBY WINNER IS THE LIKELY FAVORITE

Barring some sort of injury or other issue coming out of the race you can expect the Kentucky Derby winner to make the Preakness start. More significantly for 2015 Preakness odds the Derby winner is almost always the morning line favorite for the race. Many of the other horses in the Kentucky Derby field could also be pointed toward the Preakness though their connections will have to make a determination if they can ‘bounce back’ so quickly for another tough challenge or if they’d be better served looking toward the other many stakes races coming up this summer.  The Derby veterans are usually assigned relatively low Preakness odds since they’ve already performed well in a major race and they’re often overbet since they’re known by the public from the previous race.

TRACK BIAS MAKES A DIFFERENCE

One difference between the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness stakes is that the horses than compete are more of a known quantity.  The track bias toward the inside at Pimlico also makes the inside post positions a significant factor.  For these reasons the favorite on the Preakness odds board has fared much better in recent years than his Kentucky Derby counterpart and, for that matter, the favorite in the Belmont Stakes.  Since 2000 the post time favorite has won the Preakness six times.  This doesn’t mean that there haven’t been any long shot winners—in 2013 a 15/1 shot named Oxbow won the Preakness and paid $32.80 to win.