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Preakness Stakes: Big Brown To Win

by Christopher McIntosh
05/17/2008

I'm going to go out on a limb here and try and pick the winner of the Preakness Stakes.

There are years of history against me, mathematical proofs demonstrating picking the winner of a horse race is like picking whether a stock will go up or down in the next week, and just plain bad luck all conspiring against me.

So I'm just going to go with the favorite.

Horseplayer's have a saying that when a horse wins like it's his job and just devastates a field he "wins like a truck."

In that vein, and to avoid any further puns, I'm going to go with the horse named after the UPS truck (Big Brown)--and not coincidentally, the crushing winner of the Kentucky Derby--and you should, too.

The morning line at Pimlico--the odds given to a horse before any real betting begins and odds become parimutuel (just pretend you know what I'm talking about)--have Big Brown a 1-2 favorite to win.

Two things you should notice about this. One, the right side is bigger than the left side. Doesn't that seem a bit strange to you since every horse in the derby was roughly 2.5-1 or better? It means that they are assessing Big Brown's odds of winning at less than even money. You would get better "odds" at a blackjack table. Make a 10 dollar bet at the blackjack table, beat the dealer and you, sir, would be the proud owner of a crisp new 10 dollar chip. If you were to do the same thing with Big Brown, you would bet 10 dollars, beat the house and win... 5 dollars. You can get better odds on a coin flip.

Think about that. Given the laws of physics, there are only two outcomes in a coin flip--presuming you're not a magician or Stephen Hawking. In a horse race there are thirteen. And still they have him pegged at less than even up odds.

Second, the percentages. 2-1 odds mean you will in one out of every three times (twice you will lose, once you will win, ipso facto, 2-1). 1-2 means that 2 out of every three times you will win.

The lovely and talented oddsmakers have set the odds such that they are telling the betting public 67% of the time this race would be run Big Brown would win.

And they're probably right. If they ran this race 10 times he should win somewhere around 6-7. Maybe more.

His race in the Kentucky Derby was, to put it bluntly, just silly. You know how track and field athletes stagger their start so as not to punish the person in the outside lane who would have to run further than everyone else? They don't do that in the Derby and BIg Brown had starting position number 20. Every single horse in the race was inside him. He started from a gate somewhere out in Lexington. When he went around the first turn there were five or six horses inside him. His jockey, couldn't (or wouldn't) change that fact for the second turn--five or six horses inside of him as he made the turn for home. At which point, he moved toward the front, looked the horse in the eye and jetted by him by five lengths at the end of the longest race of his career, despite having run a longer race than anyone else.

One last thing. Racehorses are given something called Beyer Speed Figures after every race. They're designed so you can compare the performance of a horse in the Kentucky Derby with say a grade 3 stakes race on turf in California. Point is, it's like a scoring system. For all intents and purposes this years goes to 110 (you four hard core racing fans, sit down, I realize that's not exactly right, I'm making a point). Big Brown's last three races? 106, 106, 109. Number of times the entire field has broken a score of 100? Twice. By the same horse. A horse that Big Brown beat by the length of the track in the Derby. Everyone else is unproven, to put it kindly.

Now there is one thing working against Big Brown this year and that's the two week turnaround. His trainer, and proven crook, Richard Dutrow, jr., has said that he's worried about the two week turnaround. I'm also told that this is a man who has bet $160,000 on his own horses to win so there is some speculation--my own--that he may be trying to inflate the odds just a bit.

Regardless, Big Brown could have a seriously off day and still win. He could run without shoes and still win.

So you expect me to break my piggy bank and put it all on the number 7 horse to win tonight, correct?

In that, however, you'd be mistaken. Horses that are less than even money don't catch my eye. I've seen too many things happen, injury (God forbid), poor training, or a jockey falling off. Worse yet, sometimes the jockey stays on and a man who barely graduated high school is manning the controls of a multimillion dollar fighter jet. Let's just say it doesn't always end logically.

I'll be busy (probably in futility) trying to figure out who's coming in second and third to try and turn the favorite into something other than a lead pipe cinch on the tote board.

But Big Brown's got a date with some Black Eyed Susan's around 5:20ish tonight.