Preakness Preview

One last sports post for the week. (A musical one might follow later today.)

Tomorrow’s Preakness Stakes has more drama than the race has had in recent years. Most notably, a filly is likely to be the big favorite. Rachel Alexandra (at left) won the Kentucky Oaks by more than 20 lengths. Now, she’ll try to become only the fifth filly to win the Preakness (the last one was in 1924), and the 10th to win any of the Triple Crown races. Those are steep historical odds, but her day-of-race odds will be much shorter -- something like 2-1.

There have been plenty of subplots, two of them most prominent: One, there was a cheap plan among other owners to keep Rachel Alexandra from running, but luckily that failed. And two, Calvin Borel will be the first jockey to ever switch from a Kentucky Derby winner to another mount in the Preakness. He won on 50-1 shot Mine That Bird in the Derby, of course, but he’s always ridden the favored filly, so he’ll switch to her at Pimlico. (Some argue that bringing a female horse back off two weeks’ rest and running her against the big boys is dangerous; others scoff at that.)

My fairly uninformed opinion (I haven’t combed through the past performances yet) would bet this way for win-place-show: Friesan Fire, Rachel Alexandra, Musket Man. But I'll be rooting for the filly.

Speaking of Borel, I don’t think it’s completely unfair to make this comparison: