Gross Bombs: NFL Props for Week 16
Josh Gross
The 146th running of the Preakness Stakes is this Saturday, which means we have another opportunity to win some money. Two weeks ago, we nailed Medina Spirit to win the Kentucky Derby and had the exacta as one of my suggested exotic wagers. In that article, I used a 10-step process that narrowed the field down to four top contenders. While I don’t have the same thing for the Preakness, we can look to some historical trends to handicap this race.
Speed tends to dominate the Preakness
While there isn’t a proven process for the Preakness like the one I used to identify Medina Spirit as one of the four horses who could win the Kentucky Derby, we can still look to history to handicap the field. The first thing we need to know about this race is that it tends to favor speed and pacesetters. This isn’t the type of race where we should look to closers as our top choices to win. Here’s how the field sets up in terms of running style:
1 Ram (30-1) – Stalker
2 Keepmeinmind (15-1) – Closer
3 Medina Spirit (9-5) – Pacesetter
4 Crowded Trade (10-1) – Stalker
5 Midnight Bourbon (5-1) – Pacesetter
6 Rombauer (12-1) – Closer
7 France Go de Ina (20-1) – Pacesetter
8 Unbridled Honor (15-1) – Closer
9 Risk Taking (15-1) – Closer
10 Concert Tour (5-2) – Pacesetter
It’s no surprise the top three choices are pacesetters in Medina Spirit, Concert Tour and Midnight Bourbon. In terms of the closers, we have Keepmeinmind, Rombauer, Unbridled Honor and Risk Taking. If you’re only looking to play win bets, these aren’t your horses.
Of course, the top three options likely won’t offer a good price, so you may want to opt for a stalker. Ram is simply outclassed in this one, so that leaves Crowded Trade as an intriguing option. France Go de Ina is a pacesetter, but it’s really hard to handicap this horse. The Japanese-based horse has run four times, with its most-recent being a sixth-place finish in the UAE Derby. This horse could hit the board but isn’t in play for the win.
(Prepare for the Preakness and get your bets in thanks to this guide from our friends at OptixEQ)
Experience (and wins) matter
To win the Preakness, horses typically not only need experience in graded stakes races, but they also need to have won. Only two of the last 20 Preakness winners had not won a graded stakes race. Of the field, Keepmeinmind, Medina Spirit, Midnight Bourbon, Risk Taking and Concert Tour have all won a graded stakes event with Medina Spirt the lone horse to win a Grade 1 race.
Crowded Trade has not won a graded stakes but has run in one in each of its last two races and was edged out by a nose in the Gotham back in March. Rombauer’s most recent graded stakes was a third-place finish in the Blue Grass Stakes in April. As I just mentioned, France Go de Ina finished sixth in its lone graded stakes. Unbridled Honor managed a second-place finish in the Grade 3 Lexington in April. Ram is the lone horse without any graded stakes experience. In fact, Ram only broke its maiden a month ago.
Respect the Baffert horses
In the buildup to the Preakness, Bob Baffert has dominated the headlines and not because of his recent Kentucky Derby win. Rather, it’s because his winning horse Medina Spirit failed a drug test after the race. The good news is that Medina Spirit is allowed to run and has passed a pre-race drug test.
History has really favored Baffert horses in the Preakness, as he’s won the race a massive seven times. Every one of those horses ran in the Kentucky Derby, with five of them winning the run for the roses. In fact, Baffert only has one Derby winner who didn’t also win the Preakness. Of course, that came last year with Authentic in the odd Triple Crown schedule that was impacted by COVID-19.
So we have two Baffert horses in this one: Medina Spirt and Concert Tour. That’s your top two options on the board based on the morning line odds. Medina Spirit obviously ran in the Derby, but Concert Tour did not. If the trends tell us anything, we may want to fade Concert Tour for win bets and on top of our exotic wagers.
Fade the longshots
Every year there are a horse or two who are simply overmatched in this race. Oftentimes this is a local horse who is based at Pimlico. While these horses may have interesting stories, betting on them to win is a waste of your money. In 145 years of the Preakness, only four winners have come in at over 15-1 odds with Master Derby being the longest odds we’ve seen at 23-1 in 1975.
If you had any temptation to wager on Ram to win, this should hopefully dissuade you. Ram has won each of its last two races, but the horse has never competed in a graded stakes and only has a top Beyer speed of 81. This is also another reason to not be overly bullish on France Go de Ina, who is likely to go off at 20-1 or higher.
However, it should be noted that three of the last 10 winners have been between 10-1 and 15-1: Cloud Computing in 2017 at 13-1, Oxbow in 2013 at 15-1, and Shackleford in 2011 at 12-1. With Rombauer being a closer, the most likely candidate in this range of the odds is Crowded Trade.
How to bet the race
Given the historic trends, things set up very well for Medina Spirit. That said, the Derby winner tends to draw a lot of money from the betting public. It wouldn’t be the least bit surprising to see this horse go off at something like 6-5. Betting on horses with such short odds is a negative-EV strategy over the long term. We can and will put Medina Spirt on top of exotic wagers, but this isn’t the horse for your win bets.
Instead, we need to look for a better price. Concert Tour will give more favorable odds, but only barely. Expect something in the range of 3-1 for the other Baffert horse. Given Baffert’s history, this is a pass. Midnight Bourbon was one of my favorites for the Derby but wasn’t in the mix after getting bumped early. This horse has the style that can win the Preakness, but it hasn’t won since wiring the field at the Lecomte Stakes back in January.
So that brings us to Crowded Trade. Lightly run with just three races under its belt, this horse hit the board in each of its two graded stakes races. This will be an interesting test in terms of distance, as Crowded Trade has never run more than 1 1/8. But Crowded Trade’s stalking style could have it positioned well for a sneaky win. Add to that the fact that jockey Javier Castellano and trainer Chad Brown were the team behind Cloud Computing’s win in 2017, and we’re cooking with some gas. If you want a good price on a horse with a shot to win, Crowded Trade is your best bet.
(Prepare for the Preakness and get your bets in thanks to this guide from our friends at OptixEQ)
If you don’t want to bet exotics and prefer to stick to win, place, and show bets, here’s how we could approach this race on a small budget and a larger budget:
$20 Budget
$10 win and place bets on 4
$100 Budget
$25 win, place, and show bets on 4
$12 win and place bet on 5
In terms of the exotics, we don’t simply want to box up the favorites and call it a day. The top two betting favorites haven’t finished in those spots at the Preakness in nearly 40 years. We did see the reverse in 2012 with the second favorite winning the race and the favorite finishing second, but it’s rare for the favorites to come in at the top of the board. We almost always see horses with slightly longer odds hitting the board. Preakness exactas have had at least one horse at 10-1 or greater in nine of the last 10 races.
So we need to look to some of the longer odds for our exotics. Here’s where those closers come into play. Keepmeinmind, Rombauer, Unbridled Honor and Risk Taking are all in play to hit the board. If you want to play a simple exacta that uses these horses and fades the top three favorites, we’d be looking at something like 4 with 2-6-8-9. A $2 exacta would cost you $8 for this bet and the payout would likely be quite hefty. Of course, this isn’t the most probable outcome, so it’s a good idea to play multiple exotics. Here are some sample wagers based on my handicapping:
$2 exacta: 4 with 2-5-6-8-9 ($10 total bet)
$2 exacta: 3 with 2-5-6-8-9 ($10 total bet)
$1 exacta: 4 with all ($9 total bet)
$5 exacta box: 3, 4 ($10 total bet)
$1 trifecta: 4 with 2-5-6-8-9 with all ($40 total bet)
$1 trifecta: 4 with all with 2-5-6-8-9 ($40 total bet)
$1 trifecta: 4 with 3 with all ($8 total bet)
$1 trifecta: 4 with all with 3 ($8 total bet)
