Inside the numbers for the 141st Preakness Stakes

12:59 PM ET

Just like we did for the Kentucky Derby, let’s look at a few contenders for this Preakness and see how they relate to other horses in recent Preakness Stakes history. Caveat emptor: These stats are mostly intended to be fun, playful, silly, or just interesting discussion starters, so use them at your own risk when upgrading or downgrading who you’re likely to bet in the Preakness.

The Derby winner

Nyquist enters the Preakness following a win in the Kentucky Derby two weeks prior, and recent history has been favorable to the Derby winner. Since 1963, the Derby winner has won the Preakness 21 times in 50 attempts (three Derby winners did not compete in the Preakness). That’s a record of 50-21-10-6, and it’s even stronger in the past 20 years as they have a record of 19-10-4-1 since 1996, when Grindstone was retired just days after his Derby win.

The Derby runner-upExaggerator couldn’t get by Nyquist, right, in the Kentucky Derby. Will the tables turn in Saturday’s Preakness Stakes? Coady Photography

Exaggerator is looking to turn the tables on Nyquist, having already lost to him four times in his career, most recently when he ran second to him in the Derby. Since 1963, 39 times the second-place finisher in the Derby ran again in the Preakness, and in all but two of those times faced the Derby winner again. In 18 of those 37 races, the Derby winner repeated, and eight times they replicated the Derby order of finish. Only three times did the Derby runner-up win the Preakness, Forward Pass in 1968 (who was later awarded the winner’s share of the purse in the Derby), Summer Squall in 1990, and Prairie Bayou in 1993. In that time, the Derby runner-up has compiled a Preakness record of …

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