BALTIMORE – Chad Brown grew up wanting to be a horse trainer; Seth Klarman always has been into finance. Both have reached the top of their professions by focusing more on long-term profit than short-term gain, and their approach was rewarded gloriously on Saturday at Pimlico Race Course when the lightly raced Cloud Computing won the 142nd Preakness Stakes, a race in which Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming faded to eighth.
BALTIMORE – Just a few years ago, the disappointment would have been far more profound. But with American Pharoah having ended a 37-year Triple Crown drought with his sweep two years ago, perhaps it was a bit easier for racing fans and the connections of vanquished Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming to accept defeat Saturday in the 142nd Preakness Stakes at Pimlico.
Preakness Stakes order of finish:
1) Cloud Computing
2) Classic Empire
3) Senior Investment
4) Lookin At Lee
5) Gunnevera
6) Multiplier
7) Conquest Mo Money
8) Always Dreaming
9) Hence
10) Term of Art
Preakness Stakes payouts:
Cloud Computing
$28.80 $8.60 $6
Classic Empire
$4.40 $4
Senior Investment
$10.20
$2 exacta
2-5 - $98.40
$1 trifecta
2-5-8 - $1,097.80
BALTIMORE – As of 6:15 p.m. Eastern on Friday, and with $217,355 in the win pool in advance wagering, Always Dreaming was a 4-5 favorite for the 142nd Preakness on Saturday at Pimlico Race Course.
Here’s the complete oddsboard:
(No., Horse, Odds)
1. Multiplier, 23-1
2. Cloud Computing, 19-1
3. Hence, 30-1
4. Always Dreaming, 4-5
5. Classic Empire, 5-2
6. Gunnevera, 10-1
7. Term of Art, 60-1
8. Senior Investment, 45-1
9. Lookin At Lee, 10-1
10. Conquest Mo Money, 12-1
BALTIMORE – Always Dreaming accounts for the lowest will-pay in the daily double linking the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes and the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico. A $2 wager with the Black-Eyed Susan winner, Actress, with Always Dreaming will return $68.80. All-sources handle on the two-day wager was $777,599, up 4 percent from last year.
The pick-four sequence that ends with Saturday’s Preakness Stakes at Pimlico – it has a guaranteed pool of $2 million; it handled $2.29 million last year – is one you might have to get creative in early if you feel the way I do about the big event.
Nyquist, who had won the Kentucky Derby two weeks earlier, came blazing out of the gate in the 2016 Preakness. Going head-and-head with longshot Uncle Lino, Nyquist blasted his first quarter-mile in 22.38 seconds. And with that, it already was fairly clear that there would be no Triple Crown bid in 2016.
The Preakness generally is run at a fast pace considering it’s a 1 3/16-mile, two-turn race for 3-year-olds in May. But there is fast, and there is too fast, and Nyquist’s contested opening quarter was the fastest first fraction ever posted in 141 years of Preakness history.
BALTIMORE – D. Wayne Lukas, a six-time winner of the Preakness Stakes, rolled into Old Hilltop from Kentucky on Wednesday with a pair of horses in tow.
Lukas is tied with Bob Baffert as the second-winningest trainer in Preakness history. Only 19th-century horseman Robert Wyndham Walden, who won the race seven times between 1875 and 1888, has more Preakness wins.
Lukas, 81, won the Preakness in 2013 with Oxbow, in 1999 with Charismatic, in 1995 with Timber Country, in 1994 with Tabasco Cat, in 1985 with Tank’s Propsect, and in 1980 with Codex.
BALTIMORE – A little more than 60 hours prior to the Preakness Stakes on Saturday, Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming stepped onto the Pimlico track at 5:33 a.m. Thursday, ready for his daily exercise. Turned loose from the pony accompanying him, he immediately set out with keen interest for his 1 1/2-mile gallop, looking nothing like a horse just 12 days removed from the biggest test of his career, the Kentucky Derby.
