HORSE RACING

Early Voting a Leading Contender in Preakness

The 2022 Preakness Stakes is Saturday, and nine top three-year-olds will run in the second jewel of the Triple Crown at Pimlico Race Course. Which horses should you bet on at FanDuel Racing?

There are 10 stakes races Saturday at Pimlico including the $1.5 million Preakness Stakes in Race 13. Post time at 7:01 p.m. ET. Using TVG projections and Horse Racing Nation (HRN) as a guide, here are the horse profiles for the second leg of America’s Triple Crown.

New players, bet $5, win $100 on the Preakness and get Win Bet Insurance if your horse finishes 2nd or 3rd. Bet the Preakness!

As always, check the program for racing information, and monitor the weather and track conditions.

(I will reference Equibase's Speed Figure and BRIS and Beyer speed figures, which tells you how fast a horse has been running in each of its races -- adjusted for track, distances, and conditions.)

#5 Early Voting

Morning Line Odds: 7/2
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Trained by Chad Brown and ridden by Jose Ortiz, Early Voting was installed as the second choice at 7/2 odds in the Preakness field of nine runners.

Early Voting lacks the experience of many of his Preakness foes like the favorite, Epicenter. But this strong son of the great Gun Runner is maturing and ran his best race with a 102 Equibase Speed Figure to finish a very close second in the Wood Memorial after winning the Withers Stakes wire-to-wire in his second start. Early speed and a recent five-furlong bullet workout at Belmont has Early Voting looking to move forward again after skipping the Kentucky Derby.

"He hit the times just as I wanted and he galloped out super,” trainer Brown said of Early Voting’s recent work.

Brown pulled off a Preakness win with Cloud Computing (13/1) in 2017, and that colt came into the race under the same six-week break off an in-the-money Wood Memorial finish and also just three races under his saddle.

Early Voting looks the part of a very viable contender, and jockey Ortiz opts to stay with this one over Preakness rival Simplification, who Ortiz rode to a fourth-place finish in the Kentucky Derby.

2022 Preakness

There is plenty of intrigue with this year’s Preakness.

Will Epicenter validate the belief he ran the best Kentucky Derby performance based on being relatively close to the hot pace? Can Kentucky Oaks' winner Secret Oath take on the boys and prevail the way Swiss Skydiver did in 2020? Will 'new shooter' Early Voting pull off the upset like Rombauer did last year after also skipping the Kentucky Derby? Is there a longshot lurking in the wings to run by them all?

The last three Preakness winners have gone to post with odds of 11/1, 11/1 and 6/1. Justify in 2018 was the last Preakness favorite to win the race on his way to capturing the Triple Crown.