2014 Preakness: Payouts (2000 - 2013)

There was a time in the not so long ago recent history of the Preakness Stakes when betting on the favorite was practically a slam dunk at the windows. Beginning in 2001 with Point Given, the post time favorite rattled off seven wins in nine years, including a stretch of five in a row from 2001 to 2005. But beginning with Super Saver in 2010, Preakness favorites currently find themselves on a four-race losing streak.

• 2010: Super Saver, 9/5 at post time, finished 8th; 2nd choice Looking At Lucky (5/2) won.
• 2011: Animal Kingdom (5/2) finished 2nd; Shackleford (13/1) won by a half length.
• 2012: Bodemeister (7/5) finished 2nd by a neck to Derby winner I'll Have Another (3/1).
• 2013: Orb (3/5) finished 4th; Oxbow (15/1) won in wire-to-wire fashion.

However, even with the four-race losing streak for Preakness favorites, the chalk has performed well at Pimlico since the turn of the century. Since 2000, only three Preakness favorites have finished worse than 2nd at Pimlico: Orb in 2013 (4th), Super Saver in 2010 (8th), and Barbaro in 2006 (9th). And as we all know, Barbao was pulled up after the start and failed to finish the race, which leaves us with just Super Saver and Orb as the only true favorite flops in the Preakness.

So what does all this mean for California Chrome's chances in the 2014 Preakness? Probably not a whole lot other than if you're betting on the favorite failing to hit the board on Saturday, you'll probably be disappointed; the crowd has done a fairly decent job picking out the favorite in this race and, perhaps more importantly, since the favorite tends to be the Derby winner (with the exception of Bodemeister) there doesn't appear to be a significant deterioration in performance on the short turnaround from Derby day.

Given the recent history of well-performing favorites at the Preakness, and the fact that the field at Pimlico is much smaller than the typical 20-horse free-for-all at Churchill Downs two weeks prior, the payouts tend to fall outside of the "life changing score" category. As illustrated by the charts below, only three times since 2000 has the winning horse produced a win bet payout greater than $10.00 (and that's happened twice in the last three years). In that same vein, your exactas, trifectas and superfectas (shown below as $2 payouts in order to be consistent through all years), rarely pop into the "Derby crazy" territory.

Below are summaries of the parimutuel payouts at the Preakness since the year 2000.

Preakness Win, Exacta, Trifecta & Superfecta

Preakness Pick 3, Pick 4 & Pick 5

Preakness Doubles & Favorite Finish

Preakness Median, High/Low Payouts