2016 Preakness Pace Profile & Trends

Trend #4: Preakness Longshots Have High Last-Out Late Pace Numbers

As mentioned above, nine horses have hit the Preakness superfecta over the past five years at 10/1 odds or higher. The table below shows these nine horses and their last race performances before the Preakness with the following:

• Horse’s Brisnet run style coming into the Preakness
• Distance of last race before the Preakness and finish
• Early pace rating to first call of race (E1)
• Middle pace rating to second call of the race (E2)
• Late pace rating from second call to the finish of the race (LP)
• Total Brisnet Speed Rating for the race (BRIS)
• Preakness Odds at post time

• Focussing on the horses’ finishing Late Pace (LP) in these races, six of the nine longshots had a LP higher than 97 in their last race before the Preakness.
• In four of these six instances, the horse was coming out of a race that was NOT the Kentucky Derby.
• This trend would point to longshots coming out of shorter races being able to show more speed late as they stretch out to the longer Preakness distance. (Note: Tale Of Verve ran at the same Preakness distance of 1 & 3/16 mile in his last race before the Preakness.)
• It should be noted that these four longshots were a mix of early speed horses like Astrology and Divining Rod and closers like Tale of Verve and Zetterholm.  Therefore, late pace isn’t just shown by closers moving late, but can also be shown by early speed horses being nearer to the early pace and still being able to show late pace in the deep stretch.

WHAT TREND #4 MEANS FOR 2016 PREAKNESS?

Focussing only on late pace of the last race before the Preakness is a narrow approach to handicapping the full Preakness and is just one minor component that can help narrow down what longshots have the best chance to hit the board and round out exotic wagers.

The table below shows all of the entered horses in this year’s Preakness with their last race performance with the same Brisnet information as presented above:

• Only three horses in this year’s Preakness field show LP numbers higher than 97 in their last race including Uncle Lino (116), Exaggerator (108) and Awesome Speed (106).
• Uncle Lino and Awesome Speed both did not run in the Kentucky Derby and most likely will be longshots over 20/1 odds.
• Uncle Lino’s California Chrome Stakes win was at a 1 & 1/16 mile distance and Awesome Speed comes out of the 1 & 1/8 mile Federico Tesio.  Both won in gate-to-wire fashion, so both were able to show late pace even though they were on the lead throughout their respective race.