Preakness Stakes 2025: Odds, Best Bets, And Journalism's Biggest Run
LOUISVILLE, KY - MAY 03: Sovereignty with Junior Alvarado riding wins the 151 Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs Racetrack, on May 3, 2025 in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo)
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There are a few aspects to this evening's $2-million 150th Preakness that matter in a sort of reverse way to top favorite Journalism than to some of his fellow combatants, one of which is the length. Meaning: Had the Kentucky Derby been a sixteenth of a mile shorter — the length of the Preakness — then that would have been approximately just as he peaked in the stretch, arguably just seconds before he began to lose the Derby to the thundering-on Sovereignty. Working for Journalism, also, is the fact that the Preakness will confront him with slightly less than half of the traffic he faced in the Derby. He got pinched, and rather characteristically, by the Derby traffic in the early going, and had to recover. It's far less likely to happen today.
But before we get into who's gunning for Journalism and who among them has the form to take him down, here, a refresher on the field and the odds.
(Source: Pimlico, 5/17/2025)
Did we mention that the owners of Pimlico, the Stronach Group (under its 1/ST racing flag) has, like many corporations in America, put artificial intelligence to work on the Preakness probabilities? It's quite jolly having the machine mind do the mixing and re-mixing of the billion factors that comprise handicapping, minus the players' 'gut-feel' component, since AI can't really go there.
Suffice it to say, AI is by definition proprietary in the sense that it only knows what it's fed by its proprietor, so, when we clock into preakness.com's AI picks for Race 13 today, we get this entertaining breakdown of what the machine has been taught are the top four picks, ranked in descending order of implied probability to win (NOT in order-of-finish):
Post Position, Horse, Implied Probability To Win
2. JOURNALISM 36%
7. SANDMAN 17%
8. CLEVER AGAIN 15%
6. RIVER THAMES 11%
(Source: Pimlico (1/ST) Artificial Intelligence, 5/17/2025)
Fascinatingly, Clever Again pops up in the machine's hivemind four big percentage points likelier to win than Pletcher's hardworking River Thames. The proof of the machine's handicapping chops — or more accurately, the proof of the machine's programmers' handicapping chops in weighting the hundreds of factors influencing Thoroughbred performance — will be in the proverbial pudding.
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