How long is the Preakness Stakes?
By Zoe West
The middle jewel of the Triple Crown, the Preakness Stakes is the shortest of the three.
For three-year-old thoroughbreds, the Triple Crown is viewed as the ultimate test. It pushes the young horses over distances and under pressures that they have never experienced before, and likely never will be again.
The longest Derby and Triple Crown prep races are a mile and an eighth. The Derby pushes them further, going a mile and a quarter. The Preakness is a bit shorter than that, and the shortest of the series.
It is also at the smallest track. The Pimlico track in Maryland is actually the same distance around as Churchill Downs. But it is a bit narrower, and has sharper turns.
The Preakness stakes is run over a distance of 1 3/16 miles. That’s shorter that the traditional classic distance (1 1/4) but still longer than most of the races the horses competing have run. In fact, as most of the expected starters did not run in the Derby, this will be their longest go-around.
A sixteenth of a mile is really not a very long distance. Especially when you’re a horse who has a 20+ foot long stride when galloping. So the horses who excelled at the Derby distance should do more or less the same in the Preakness. That’s one reason this race has been easiest for the Derby winner to win over the past two decades or so. When subtracting a sixteenth of a mile, the race’s game plan, as a whole, doesn’t need to change much. A Jockey might ask their horse to start really running a bit earlier. But a horse that was competitive in the Derby should be in the Preakness as well.
The greatest challenge presented by the Preakness is the turnaround time. Before this, few of the horses have been asked to run at a high level twice in a month, let alone in two weeks. The true test of the horses stamina doesn’t happen until the Belmont Stakes in June.
Next: The official flower of every Triple Crown race, explained
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