Preakness Stakes Betting Guide
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Preakness Stakes Betting Guide
The Preakness Stakes comes our way on Saturday, May 15, 2021, returning to its traditional spot on the calendar. Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit has been given the go-ahead to be able to compete in the Preakness Stakes and is the betting favorite. Trainer Bob Baffert said he won’t attend in an effort to avoid being a distraction. Medina Spirit will be in line to chase down the second leg of the coveted Triple Crown.
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2021 Preakness Stakes Post Positions
1 – Ram
2 – Keepmeinmind
3 – Medina Spirit
4 – Crowded Trade
5 – Midnight Bourbon
6 – Rombauer
7 – France Go de Ina
8 – Unbridled Honor
9 – Risk Taking
10 – Concert Tour
What Is the Preakness Stakes?
The Preakness Stakes is the second leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown, and it is often referred to as “The Run for the Black-Eyed Susans.” It takes place at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland, and sets some of the world’s best three-year-old horses against one another.
The Kentucky Derby is famously set on the first Saturday in May, with the Preakness Stakes coming on the third Saturday in May. It precedes the third leg of the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes.
The Preakness Stakes runs on a dirt track of 1 3/16 miles, or 9.5 furlongs, and the field is limited to 14 horses.
When Is the 2021 Preakness Stakes?
This year’s Preakness Stakes comes our way on Saturday, May 15, 2021, from Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland. The race is scheduled for 6:45 p.m. ET (3:45 p.m. PT).
Who Is the Defending Champion of the Preakness Stakes?
The Preakness Stakes was last won by Swiss Skydiver in 2020. Before that, it was War of Will taking home victory in 2019. The last time the Preakness Stakes was part of a Triple Crown achievement was in 2018 when Justify took home the honors.
Recent Preakness Stakes winners:
2020: Swiss Skydiver
2019: War of Will
2018: Justify*
2017: Cloud Computing
2016: Exaggerator
2015: American Pharoah*
2014: California Chrome
2013: Oxbow
2012: Ill Have Another
2011: Shackleford
2010: Lookin At Lucky
*Denotes a Triple Crown winner.
Of those recent winners, famous trainer Bob Baffert was the trainer of Justify, American Pharoah, and Lookin At Lucky. Baffert is the trainer for this year’s Kentucky Derby winner, Medina Spirit.
How To Use TVG’s Preakness Stakes Offer
In order to be eligible to receive the risk-free bet, you’ll need to place an eligible wager. TVG defines eligible wagers as single-horse wagers, so exotic bets do not count. Examples of single horse wagers are bets to win, bets to win/place, bets to win/show, or bets to win/place/show.
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With the TVG offer, we can benefit from less risk as a downside due to the risk-free bet that’s being offered, so this is a time we might want to look at a long shot of a wager, which means going a little further down the odds board. If we were to bet the favorite using TVG’s risk-free bet off, though, we’d want to bet him to win because we’ll receive a higher payout than if we included placing or showing in the wager.
When offered a risk-free bet, we’re looking to wager on longer shots because we always have the fall-back option of getting a risk-free wager credit that we can hopefully make up our loss on while shooting for some upside.
We really like one horse that isn’t the favorite and is around 10-to-1 odds. The performance potential of this horse coupled with the payout we could receive if the horse wins is very attractive.
How To Use TwinSpires’ Betting Offer
To earn the full $200 bonus, new players will need to sign up using the code ‘BET200’ and then wager $800 within 30 days of creating an account at TwinSpires.
Similar to what we described for the TVG offer, we’d look to use the TwinSpires betting offer as a cushion that can give us some money back.
The absolute safest bet to make will likely be betting on the favorite to show, which means the horse only has to finish in the top three to cash. The payout won’t return much compared to what’s being wagered, though.
We could also bet on a few more exotic bets instead of just straight bets. Exactas and trifectas are always fun to wager on. They’re long shots to hit, of course, because you have to select more than one horse in an exact finishing position, but payoffs can be larger and they’re entertaining to sweat.
If you’re someone who is going to wager $400 or more on the Preakness Stakes, do so using the offer from TwinSpires so you can get some money back win or lose.
Taking the Boom-or-Bust Approach
If we really want to go big on betting the Preakness Stakes, we can take a boom-or-bust approach and fire on some of the much longer shots to win the race. The benefit here is that we can get our money back in the form of a wager credit thanks to TVG’s risk-free bet offer, so there’s a little cushion for us to land on.
Before you go thinking we’re crazy, let’s not forget about what happened just one year ago. At the 145th running of the Preakness Stakes, Country Horse won the race as a 65-to-1 longshot.
Types of Preakness Stakes Bets
Bettors wagering on the Preakness Stakes can do so in many ways. You can bet on more than just a horse to win. Betting on a horse to win is a straight-forward wager that is exactly what you think, you’re betting on the horse to win the race. Other single-horse bets are “to place” or “to show” bets.
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If you wager on a horse to place, you’re betting on that horse finishing in the top two positions, first or second. With a bet to place, you’ll receive a lesser payout than wagering on a horse to win because you have two chances for the horse to win instead of just one.
Likewise, if you bet on a horse to show, you’re wagering on that horse to finish first, second, or third, so now you have three chances to win. A bet to win will pay the most, a bet to place will pay the second most, and a bet to show will pay the least of the three.
There are several other horse-racing wager types you can place on the Preakness Stakes in addition to win, place, and show bets. Deemed “exotic” bets because they differ a bit from the norm, bettors can wager on the exact finishing positions of horses in the race for a chance at an even larger payday. The most common exotic bets are the “exacta,” “trifecta,” and “superfecta.”
With an exacta wager, you are attempting to predict the top two horses in the race in the correct finishing position. With a trifecta wager, you’re going even further in hopes of predicting the top three horses in the correct order. With a superfecta wager, bettors are attempting to nail down the top four horses in the exact order they finish in.
There is also an exotic bet called the “super high five.” As you might’ve guessed by the name, this type of wager calls for bettors to try and pick the top five horses in the race in exact finishing order.
Only the win portion of a win/place, win/show or win/place/show wager shall be counted as an Eligible Wager. If your Eligible Wager loses, you will receive a bonus equal to the amount wagered in your Eligible Wager, up to a maximum of $300 (“Bonus”). Limit 1 Eligible Wager.
How long is the Preakness Stakes?
The Preakness Stakes is run on a track that is 1 3/16 miles in length, or 9.5 furlongs. One furlong equals 220 yards. The race itself lasts about two minutes in duration.
How do horse racing odds work?
Horse racing odds commonly use a pari-mutuel system to be calculated. This means all of the bets of a certain type are pooled together and then the odds are determined by the distribution of the bets among all bettors, after taking out the house take. The more money bet on a horse, the worse the odds will be and the lesser the payout. With pari-mutuel, the exact odds of a wager won’t be known until right before the race goes off when the betting window closes.