Preakness Stakes 2018 betting odds: Justify is favorite for $1.5M purse
Justify is the betting favorite to win the second leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown at the 2018 Preakness Stakes in Baltimore, Maryland, on Saturday, weeks after the three-year-old colt beat the field at the Kentucky Derby.
Online sportsbook Bovada.lv gives Justify 4/9 odds of winning at Pimlico Race Course. Good Magic, who finished second at the Kentucky Derby, is listed at 13/4, followed by Quip at 14/1 and Bravazo at 18/1.
Justify is considered a heavy favorite after winning the Kentucky Derby by two and a half lengths despite heavy rainfall. A relatively inexperienced horse, Justify has won all four of its races in a brief career and enters this weekend with $2.098 million in career earnings.
“I’ve seen all kinds, I mean this guy, he’s just special,” Justify’s trainer, Bob Baffert, told the New York Times after the Derby. “He has that presence about him.”
Justify is attempting to become the first horse to win the “Triple Crown” since 2015, when American Pharoah accomplished the feat. Just 12 horses in history have won the Triple Crown. Like Justify, American Pharoah was also trained by Baffert.
Known as the “Middle Jewel of the Triple Crown,” the Preakness Stakes has a $1.5 million total purse. The 143th running of the event is set to begin at 6:20 p.m. ET.
Post positions for this year’s Preakness Stakes entrants can be viewed below.
- Quip
- Lone Sailor
- Sporting Chance
- Diamond King
- Good Magic
- Tenfold
- Justify
- Bravazo