Preakness Hangover - All Hail Kegasus!

Well, the next 2 plus weeks will be extremely exciting building to a crescendo on June 7th, which will be one of the greatest days in racing history. Besides His Chromeness going for the Triple Crown, there will be 10 Stakes races worth a total of $8 million in purses. The best horses in training will actually be racing prior to the Belmont, but I understand the excitement of a Triple Crown after 36 long years.

For now, let's take a look back at the Preakness, which had a very predictable result:

Hold on.

Actually, I got a bone to pick with Pimlico first.  I almost boycotted watching the Preakness because they are no longer using the Pimlico mascot Kegasus. Kegasus is best described by Wikipedia and pictures:

"Kegasus is the mascot for the infield party for the 2011 Preakness Stakes, portrayed by a human in a centaur costume. Dubbed "Lord of the InfieldFest", Kegasus borrows his name from Pegasus and keg. Unlike Pegasus, Kegasus is not a winged horse, but is half man, half horse."

Let's dig into Kegasus' pedigree (usually I am more into horse pedigree, but sometimes it helps to understand Centaur pedigree if you have a wife who reads and talks about elves, hobgoblins and Middle Earth or whatever ridiculous thing she is reading).

Kegasus is by the God of Thoroughbred Racing, Preaknesius, out of Shelly McDougal, a waitress from Ellicot City (swear, I am not making this up). McDougal is know as the "Lady of the Bottomless Refill." This Centaur was bred on a similar cross as my dog. Regardless, we will see no more of the mighty Kegasus. All Hail Him!:

Back to business.

The following were my Preakness rankings and the actual results:

10) Ring Weekend - Finished 5th
9) Dynamic Impact - Finished 7th
8) Ria Antonia - Finished 10th
7) Pablo Del Monte - Finished 6th
6) Bayern - Finished 9th
5) Kid Cruz - Finished 8th
4) General A Rod - Finished 4th
3) Ride on Curlin - Finished 2nd
2) California Chrome - Finished 1st
1) Social Inclusion - Finished 3rd

Ride on Curlin finally got a good rider and finished second. He was not getting by California Chrome who put together another excellent performance. Social Inclusion badly washed out and behaved poorly before going into the gate. If I was able to update my blog, I would have told you to rank him lower based on that. This race went as planned as there was nothing surprising about the result. I will admit Ring Weekend ran better than I thought he would.

If you bet the Superfecta I recommended you made an $83.80 profit which is enough for 10 orders of Cheddar Bay Biscuits from Red Lobster:

This will go into the 2014 Handicapping tab (which is now showing a profit) and I will promise to start sending out more Pick 4s and 5s at Emerald as soon as my wife stops harassing me about the backyard looking like this:

Always Love your Animals and Centaurs,

Will