Grade 1 Preakness | 1 3/16M, 3-year-olds | Pimlico, Race 13, 6:48 p.m. (ET)
Most Likely Winner: Always Dreaming (#4)

BALTIMORE – The Beyer Speed Figure for Multiplier’s victory in the Illinois Derby has been adjusted from an 88 to a 94. Multiplier is a 30-1 longshot on the morning line for Saturday’s Preakness at Pimlico.

The figure for Illinois Derby runner-up Hedge Fund, beaten a head, was also adjusted similarly. Hedge Fund is running in the $100,000 Sir Barton Stakes on the Preakness undercard.

BALTIMORE – Of the 19 horses who chased home Always Dreaming in the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago, just four are back to challenge in the Preakness Stakes on Saturday at Pimlico, with their backers hoping a scenario that has played out more often than not over the last three decades returns anew.

BALTIMORE – A lot has changed in racing in the half-century since the great Damascus captured the 1967 Preakness on his way to being voted Horse of the Year, including prerace protocols.

BALTIMORE – Jim Dunleavy, the Mid-Atlantic correspondent for Daily Racing Form, was presented with the prestigious Old Hilltop Award here Thursday during the annual Alibi Breakfast. The award is presented by the Maryland Jockey Club “for covering Thoroughbred racing with excellence and distinction.”

Dunleavy has worked in a variety of roles at the Form since 1982 and most recently returned to the field in 2014 after serving more than two decades in the editorial department at several locations.

BALTIMORE – The road to a divisional Eclipse Award has run through the Preakness in 15 of the last 20 years.

Since Silver Charm won in 1997, all but five Preakness winners have been voted the top 3-year-old male of the year. The exceptions were Tiznow (2000), Summer Bird (2009), Animal Kingdom (2011), Will Take Charge (2013), and Arrogate (2016).

During the same 20-year period, the Eclipse has been voted to 11 winners of the Derby and four of the Belmont.

BALTIMORE – For whatever reason, the Preakness long has been the most formful of the three Triple Crown events, with 72 winning favorites from 142 runnings (there were two divisions in 1918), for a strike rate of 50.7 percent.

By contrast, 51 of 143 favorites (35.7 percent) have won the Kentucky Derby, and 56 of the 133 known favorites (statistics are incomplete), or 42.1 percent, have won the Belmont.

BALTIMORE – Larry Collmus has become entrenched as the premier Thoroughbred race-caller in North America, but he always feels humbled when returning home to Pimlico Race Course to call the Preakness for NBC Sports.

“This is where things started happening for me,” said Collmus.

Collmus, who grew up in nearby Ellicott City, was just 17 and a Pimlico gofer for press-box steward Eddie McMullen when he began calling races into a tape recorder. Before long, Pimlico general manager Chick Lang Sr. and his son, publicity director Chick Jr., took Collmus under their wing.

Despite giving his connections and supporters some anxious moments during training hours in the days leading up to the big event, ALWAYS DREAMING showed up cool and calm in the paddock, then validated the notion that he is the best of his division at the present time with a decisive victory in the Kentucky Derby.

As ALWAYS DREAMING makes his way to Pimlico for the second jewel in racing’s Triple Crown, it is worth looking back to where he started in order to predict what we may get from him Saturday.

With only two weeks between the Derby and Preakness, much has been made of trainer Todd Pletcher’s record on short rest. In short, it is not great. Pletcher has been in this position once before – his only other Derby winner, Super Saver, finished eighth in the Preakness as the favorite.