Arace: With Mage, Preakness may carry a hint of horse racing's Triple Crown
The pre-Preakness meeting of The Dispatch’s horse racing desk has been gaveled to order, and member Bob Clancy has the floor. That “The Clanchise” has the floor is right proper, as he picked the Kentucky Derby winner two weeks ago. He picked Mage, a 15-1 shot who paid $32.42 to win. That's some handicapping, man.
“Mage scared off everybody,” Clancy said, cheekily referring to the fact that Mage is the only horse from the Derby field to be entered in the Preakness.
Note: The last time only one Derby horse competed in the Preakness was 1948, when Citation won the Triple Crown.
This year, Mage is the absolute class of the field for the 148th Preakness Stakes, to be run at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore on Saturday.
Note: There are only eight horses competing in the Preakness this year. The last time the field was that small was 2018, when Justify won the Triple Crown.
If you’re sensing a theme here, well, we'll see if it still holds after Saturday. It should.
“I understand that Mage benefited from the speed at the Kentucky Derby, and that the Preakness is not going to be as fast as the Derby," Clancy said. "No way it is. But I’m expecting, with a clean trip, Viva Venezuela.”
Here, Clancy is referring to Mage’s Venezuelan trainer, Gustavo Delgado, and his Venezuelan jockey, Javier Castellano.
Note: Castellano is the only jockey in this year’s field to have won the Preakness previously, which he did with Bernadini in 2006 and Cloud Computing in 2017.
“This horse is special,” Clancy said. “Mage is going to be a little closer to the lead than he was at the Derby. In the far turn, I can see Castellano easing him to the outside and stepping on the gas. He just has a different acceleration. At the top of the stretch, he’ll put it into overdrive. You’re going to see Mage make a big move and possibly demolish the field.”
Mage (post No. 3) was made the morning-line favorite with 8/5 odds.
The second favorite is First Mission (No. 8) with morning-line odds of 5/2. First Mission is ridden by Luis Saez and trained by Brad Cox, two of the best in the business. Like Mage going into the Derby, First Mission has been lightly raced, which means this obviously talented colt still has a wild-card quality.
The third favorite is National Treasure (No. 1) with morning-line odds of 4/1. National Treasure is ridden by the great John Velasquez and trained by Bob Baffert, who has a record-tying seven Preakness victories to his credit as well as 30 career violations for illegally doping his horses.
Kentucky Derby week included the deaths of seven horses, including two under the care of trainer Saffie Joseph, who was suspended. Two weeks later, Baffert’s back. It’s an awful look. This will be Baffert’s first Triple Crown race since the 2021 Preakness, which was two weeks after a Baffert-trained horse, Medina Spirit, was stripped of a Kentucky Derby victory because of a drug violation. Baffert was suspended and fined – again – but he has no shame, and the industry remains soft on crime. Bah.
The fourth favorite is Blazing Sevens (No. 7), with morning-line odds of 6/1. If you’re like a lot of people, you looked at the name of the horse and noted its serendipitous gate number and your handicapping strategies stopped right there. You know what? You might be right.
Clancy is the former racing editor at the Hartford Courant, which was founded prior to the first amendment, in 1764. In order, Clancy likes Mage, Red Route One (No. 5, 10/1), National Treasure and First Mission on Saturday..
The second member of our horse racing desk is Scott “Dutch” Davis, the former racing editor of The Dispatch, which is, of course, Ohio’s Greatest Home Newspaper. When it gets delivered.
Davis picked Angel of Empire in the Derby, and Angel finished a hard-charging third. Davis also played Two Phil’s, the second-place finisher. In Saturday’s Preakness, Davis has Red Route One, Mage, National Treasure and Blazing Sevens.
“Mage looks poised to dominate a weak Preakness,” Davis said. “But it’s only his fifth start and he’s a one-move horse that has been slow out of the gate. So, I’ll take Red Route One over Mage and National Treasure. Blazing Sevens could be a surprise, though.”
Note: In the previous 147 runnings of the Preakness, only six horses have won with 15/1 odds or greater. The only one to do it in the past 40 years is Oxbow, who went off at 15/1 in 2013. One member of our horse racing desk put money on Oxbow’s nose, and it was neither Clancy nor Davis.
This is not a year to pick a long shot, but I cannot help myself. I’m going with Perform, (No. 6, 15/1). He has a Preakness rookie, Feargal Lynch, in the saddle, but he’s also in the hands of a Hall of Fame trainer, Shug McGaughey. He may not be fast enough, but his bloodlines are fine, and he has been improving.
Good luck.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Mage, Preakness may carry a hint of horse racing's Triple Crown
