BALTIMORE – So much for a return to normalcy. After being run in October as the third leg of the Triple Crown and in front of an empty grandstand in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Preakness has been restored to its rightful place on the calendar – the third Saturday in May. There will be fans allowed on-site, albeit just 10,000 on a day when typically more than 100,000 are in attendance. Yet, Saturday’s 146th Preakness will be conducted under a cloud of controversy. Medina Spirit had his Kentucky Derby victory come into question when trainer Bob Baffert announced Sunday the horse had tested positive for the corticosteroid betamethasone, a legal therapeutic medication that is not permissible to be in a horse’s system on race day. After initially denying the horse had been administered the drug, Baffert said Tuesday that the horse had been given an ointment that contained betamethasone to treat a skin irritation. :: Join DRF Bets and get ready to watch and wager on the Preakness with a $250 first deposit bonus  Under an agreement between Baffert and the Maryland Jockey Club, Medina Spirit – as well as Baffert’s other Preakness entrant Concert Tour – will undergo increased testing and monitoring in order to run. Provided those horses pass drug tests taken this week, they will be permitted to race. Test results were expected to be announced Friday. Dr. Dionne Benson, the chief veterinary officer of 1/ST Racing, the parent company of Pimlico, said if the results show “it is even going to be close [to a positive], then we will enact our request for Mr. Baffert to scratch the horse.” Baffert, who has won the Preakness seven times, has opted to return to his home in California and let assistant Jimmy Barnes saddle the two horses. Not only are Medina Spirit (9-5 morning line) and Concert Tour (5-2) the two top choices in the 10-horse field, they are the primary speed of the race. Medina Spirit’s victories in the Robert Lewis at Santa Anita and Kentucky Derby came when he was able to make the lead. Concert Tour won the Rebel at Oaklawn Park in gate-to-wire fashion. Saturday, Medina Spirit breaks from post 3 under John Velazquez, while Concert Tour figures to hustle out of post 10 under Mike Smith, who rides him for the first time. Velazquez said last week that he doesn’t think Medina Spirit needs to be in front. “The two races he got beat with me, it was freak things,” Velazquez said. Velazquez was referring to second-place finishes by Medina Spirit to Life Is Good in the San Felipe and Rock Your World in the Santa Anita Derby. Baffert has won the Preakness with five of his previous six Kentucky Derby winners. The Baffert-trained Authentic was beaten a neck by Swiss Skydiver last October. Baffert has not won the Preakness with a horse that did not race in the Kentucky Derby. Concert Tour skipped that race after running third in the Arkansas Derby on April 10. “He’s had six weeks between races now,” Barnes said Wednesday. “I think he likes that. He doesn’t like his races stacked on top of one another. I look for both of them to run very well on Saturday.” Midnight Bourbon was a front-running winner of the Lecomte Stakes at Fair Grounds in January and was close to the pace in close losses in the Risen Star and Louisiana Derby. He did not break sharply in the Kentucky Derby, was in midpack and wide, and finished sixth, beaten 8 1/4 lengths. “He is a quality horse that is training extremely well right now,” said Steve Asmussen, trainer of Midnight Bourbon and a two-time Preakness winner. “Very pleased with how he came out of the Derby. Obviously, we did not get the results that we wanted or expected, but we have plenty of horse left to try it again.” Irad Ortiz Jr. has been named to ride Midnight Bourbon and figures to have him in closer attendance on Saturday. With longshot Ram having drawn the rail and stretching out to two turns after winning a one-turn mile allowance race on May 1, he, too, could be in the early mix under Ricardo Santana Jr. for trainer D. Wayne Lukas. :: DRF's Preakness Headquarters: Contenders, latest news, past performances, analysis, and more The remainder of the field look to be closers that would hope for a solid pace. The best value might be Keepmeinmind, who while still eligible for a nonwinners-of-two allowance race ran quite well against the top 2-year-olds of 2020. His first two starts this year were lackluster – a sixth in the Rebel and a fifth in the Blue Grass. In the Derby, he broke slow under David Cohen but he actually closed significant ground when finishing seventh, just a neck behind Midnight Bourbon. “I think more of what cost him is when he had to go so wide turning for home,” trainer Robertino Diodoro said. “David started picking horses off so quick he had to swing him out going from the four to the five, six, seven path. That cost him more than anything.” Diodoro believes that since Keepmeinmind ran hard for only the last three-eighths of a mile in the Derby, he could rebound in two weeks. “The horse is doing great,” Diodoro said. “I know some people might laugh – 40-1 or more, the horse is doing great – but I’m actually feeling very confident. I love this horse going into Saturday.” Cohen rides Keepmeinmind from post 2. Trainer Chad Brown won the 2017 Preakness with Cloud Computing. Saturday, he sends out both Risk Taking and Crowded Trade for owner Seth Klarman. Risk Taking won two straight before running a poor seventh in the Wood Memorial and emerging from the race with a swollen eye due to clods of dirt hitting him. Crowded Trade has the same form that Cloud Computing had going into the Preakness – a debut win, a second in the Gotham, and third in the Wood Memorial – but Brown said he is “guarded” in his optimism of the horse getting the 1 3/16 miles of the Preakness. Todd Pletcher, in search of his first Preakness win, sends out Unbridled Honor, who finished second in the Lexington Stakes at Keeneland in his most recent start. “We need a good, honest pace to have a shot,” Pletcher said. Trainer Michael McCarthy said he, too, would like to see pace for his colt Rombauer, who has yet to win on dirt but who was a respectable third behind Essential Quality and Highly Motivated in the Blue Grass on April 3 at Keeneland. “I think there could be some horses with question marks in regard to distance, but in my case that’s the one thing I don’t have a concern with,” McCarthy said. “I could be wrong come Saturday night. My gut tells me he should be fine at this particular trip.” France Go de Ina, a Kentucky-bred, Japanese-based son of Will Take Charge, rounds out the field. He finished sixth in the UAE Derby in March. On Wednesday, his exercise rider fell off the horse at the end of a workout, but both the rider and horse were unharmed. :: Get Daily Racing Form past performances, featuring exclusive Beyer Speed Figures - the gold standard in horse racing  The Preakness will go as race 13 on a 14-race card that begins at 10:30 a.m. and features eight other stakes. NBCSN will have coverage from 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern before national NBC takes over from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Though figurative clouds hang over the race, the forecast calls for mostly sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-70s.