Just two weeks after Mystik Dan’s upset photo finish victory in the Kentucky Derby, horse racing fans will once again have an opportunity to win big in the Preakness Stakes on Saturday.
Mystic Dan, the underdog winner of the 2024 Kentucky Derby, is favored to win the Preakness Stakes.
The Preakness Stakes, the second leg of horse racing’s so-called Triple Crown, is slated to start at 6:50 p.m. on Saturday in Baltimore.
Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan is favored to win at 5-2 odds and a moneyline of +250, meaning a winning $10 bet on the horse would yield a $35 payout.
Fans can vote simply for the winner of the race or hedge their bet with a less risky alternative, including a place bet (for a horse to finish first or second) or a show bet (for a horse to come in first, second or third).
For riskier betters, sports books also offer exacta (first two in order), quinella (first two in any order), trifecta (first three in order), superfecta (first four in order) and super high five (first five in order) bets.
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$5 million. That’s how much a lucky better can win by correctly guessing the first four horses, in order, in the Preakness, as well as September’s California Crown and January’s Pegasus World Cup, through the “$5 Million Pick ‘Em Challenge” offered by 1ST BET, an affiliate of entertainment and real estate company the Stronach Group. If no perfect entry is made, the next best entry will win a $100,000 prize.
While Mystik Dan is Saturday’s favorite in the Preakness, the horse was a longshot to win at the Kentucky Derby earlier this month, winning by a nose in a photo finish despite 20-1 odds to win and a moneyline of +2,000. Fierceness, the three-year-old horse favored to win (5-2 odds) finished in a disappointing 15th place, while Just A Touch, the horse expected to finish fourth, ended up coming in dead last. Fierceness and Just A Touch will not race in the Preakness.
Imagination, expected to make a third-place finish in the Preakness, did not appear in the Kentucky Derby earlier this month over a dispute with trainer Bob Baffert, a Hall of Fame trainer with six Derby victories to his name, including Triple Crown winner American Pharoah. For the third straight year, Baffert’s name was absent from the Derby this year, following a suspension from Churchill Downs after one of his horses tested positive in a post-race drug test.