Mystik Dan is set to face tough competition from the other key contenders in the Preakness Stakes. They include Imagination, trained by Bob Baffert, Catching Freedom, trained by Brad Cox, Tuscan Gold, trained by Chad Brown. Additionally, the race may be held on a muddy track since it was raining in the morning at Pimlico Race Course and rain showers are expected to continue in the afternoon.
Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan will run against seven other horses for back-to-back Triple Crown wins. Winning the Preakness Stakes will make him the first horse since Justify in 2018 to win both the Derby and Preakness. It will put him in a position to clinch the Triple Crown at Belmont Stakes next month.
What time does Preakness 2024 start?
The post time is 6:50 p.m. ET, but NBC’s coverage begins on the air at 4:30 p.m. ET, with streaming via Peacock. Baffert was supposed to send two runners in the race, set to start just after 7 p.m. EDT. But the morning line favorite, Muth, was in earnest in the barn poker game with a fever earlier in the week.
Mystik Dan was the Saturday opening line favorite at 3-1 with Catching Freedom and Tuscan Gold at 7-2 and Imagination at 9-2. “Catching Freedom trained really well going into the Derby,” McPeek said this week. “He’s a very nice horse. And Bob wouldn’t bring one unless it was a good one. Chad also has a horse coming out of the Louisiana Derby, where he finished third behind Catching Freedom.
So, no, it’s not a given.” It was not assured McPeek would send Mystik Dan to Baltimore two weeks later after his gutsy one-lung stretching win in the Derby. But he is one of three horses from the last competition running in the Preakness—up from one last year, and two in 2020.
Many trainers now avoid doing the Derby-Preakness double, which was once commonplace for horses on the Triple Crown path. There is speculation about the reputation of the middle jewel and arguments about whether the subsequent race has become the sequence’s undesired stepchild.
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During the period, there has been open debate about stretching the races out to meet the schedules of the modern racetrack, which sees horses running less frequently. This year’s will be the last Preakness at the décaying Pimlico Race Course. The track is scheduled to be demolished early next year, and the 150th encounter will take place in 2025 at the venue during reconstruction before it moves to Laurel Park in 2026 and then returns to a revamped Pimlico in 2027.
When is the Belmont Stakes and where?
The final leg of the Triple Crown is scheduled at the Saratoga Race Course in upstate New York on June 8 for the first time. This twist is the direct result of an ongoing renovation to Belmont Park in New York City, which is anticipated to last until 2025; Belmont at Saratoga is thus probably to transpire in two straight years.
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At the moment, racing is taking place in New York at Aqueduct in Queens, more known as the arena that hosted the finale of the Triple Crown from 1963 to 1967 for the previous time.