2019 Preakness Stakes: Morning Line Odds And Post Positions

• The favorite has won the Preakness 73 times throughout its previous 143 runnings.
• Trainers Bob Baffert and D. Wayne Lukas could tie the record (7) for most Preakness wins with a victory this year.
• Secretariat set the course record in 1973, posting a time of 1:53.

BELMONT, Mary. – Though a Triple Crown winner is not in the cards this year, there are still two more jewels for the coveted series of horse racing events.

The Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course will take place tonight at 6:48 pm ET. The prized horses will begin their walks to the posts at roughly 6:20 pm, which you can catch on NBC if you won’t be watching the coverage that starts at 5 pm.

Even without the Kentucky Derby winner, Country House, set to race, the Preakness will still bring forth more betting action than any other horserace not named the Kentucky Derby.

The 2019 Preakness Stakes Morning Line Odds

With the weather always being a factor, Preakness oddsmaker, Keith Fuestle, reviews the morning odds very carefully. Fuestle has been at the helm of the betting board since 2013 when he took over for Frank Carulli.

While the Kentucky Derby allows for up to 20 horses to participate, the field of horses at the Preakness Stakes is smaller – only allowing up to 14. This year, 13 horses will compete.

Here are Fuestle’s official morning odds  for the 2019 Preakness Stakes :

• Gate 1 – War Of Will 4-1 [Finished 7th in Kentucky Derby]
• Gate 2 – Bourbon War 12-1
• Gate 3 – Warrior’s Charge 12-1
• Gate 4 – Improbable 5-2 [Finished 4th in Kentucky Derby]
• Gate 5 – Owendale 10-1
• Gate 6 – Market King 30-1
• Gate 7 – Alwaysmining 8-1
• Gate 8 – Signalman 30-1
• Gate 9 – Bodexpress 20-1 [Finished 13th in Kentucky Derby]
• Gate 10 – Everfast 50-1
• Gate 11 – Laughing Fox 20-1
• Gate 12 – Anothertwistafate 6-1
• Gate 13 – Win Win Win 15-1 [Finished 9th in Kentucky Derby]

Ways To Bet On The Preakness Stakes

Straight Bets

• Win – Selecting the horse to finish first.
• Place – Selecting the horse to finish first or second.
• Show – Selecting the horse to finish first, second, or third.

Exotic Bets

• Exacta – Selecting two horses to finish first and second in exact order.
• Trifecta – Selecting three horses to finish first, second, and third in exact order.
• Superfecta – Selecting four horses to finish first, second, third, and fourth in exact order.

You can always select a box bet as well. If you are to have your exotic bets “boxed”, the payout may be smaller; however, it removes the necessity to select the horses in the exact order.

Offshore betting sites also provide an alternative to the standard pari-mutuel wagering style. Here, you can find fixed-odds that are generally more lucrative than the morning odds listed above. Each site will post different lines, so be sure to scan around a few sites before selecting one, if this is the route you decide to take.

Handicapping The 2019 Preakness Stakes

Introduced in 1873, the Preakness Stakes, or the “Run for the Black-Eyed Susans”, will be putting on their 144th running, as some years were skipped in the early 1900s.

Fillies have won the Preakness five times, with the most recent coming in 2009 (Rachel Alexandra) – breaking an 85-year drought.

As the shortest of the three legs in the Triple Crown, the Preakness’ track is 1 and 3/16 Miles long. Though the track has seen six different track lengths in its fascinating history, this distance has been set since 1925.

With a smaller field of horses and a shorter distance to run, longshots rarely pay out. In 1975, Master Derby was the highest-priced winner but returned only $48.80 for bettors putting down $2.

Instead look towards the favorites, who have won the Preakness 73 times throughout its history. Dive even deeper to notice that only seven horses in the last 50 years have won the Preakness who didn’t compete in the Kentucky Derby.

Though Robert Wyndham Walden holds the record for training seven horses to victory in the 1800s, two of the more recent trainers – Bob Baffert and D. Wayne Lukas – just trail tying Walden’s record by one victory each. In this year’s running, Baffert has trained the favorite, Improbable, while Lukas’ horse, Market King, remains an extreme-longshot.

As the horses take off, they will attempt to beat Secretariat’s course record of 1:53, which was set in 1973. Regardless of whether a horse beats the record time or not, the winner will walk away with $900,000 of the $1.5 million prize pool.

News tags: Preakness Stakes