Preakness Stakes Betting 2025

How to Bet on the Preakness Stakes

You can bet on the Preakness Stakes at the racecourse and online horse betting sites. Check out U.S. sports betting sites to learn about the sign-up process, where you can bet online, what markets you can bet on, and more.

Types of Preakness Stakes Bets

Preakness Stakes betting markets include the standard horse racing wagers, and also have these exotic bets:

• Exacta: In the correct order, pick the first and second horse home in any race.
• Trifecta: Predicted the first three home in the correct order.
• Superfecta: Select the first four to finish the race in the correct order.
• Quinella: This bet boxes an Exacta, meaning you still win as long as the two picks finish in the first two, regardless of their order. You can also box a Trifecta and Superfecta.

Top Preakness Stakes Betting Trends

The Preakness Stakes betting is dominated by the Kentucky Derby winner and other purse earners; those horses always win the prize. But there can be surprises, like when Kentucky Oaks winner Rachel Alexandra won in 2009. 

These betting tips can help:

• The draw: Pimlico is a fair track, and no post position is a significant negative, though the higher the gate, the wider the draw—and the longer a horse has to gallop. Triple Crown winners have won from each of the most-used gates: 1-8.
• Kentucky form: Every Kentucky Derby winner has run in the Preakness in the past two decades, and 11 have won both. Only four Preakness winners did not run in the Kentucky Derby; one won the Kentucky Oaks.

How do the Preakness Stakes Work?

The Preakness Stakes field is limited to 14 runners, but there can often be more than 300 horses nominated for the race. 

To participate in the Preakness Stakes, horses must first be entered for $15,000 to pass the entry box and $15,000 to start the race. If more than 14 horses pay to start, the final lineup will be decided by prize money already won.

The first seven places are filled by horses accumulating the highest earnings in Graded races. The following four places go to horses accumulating the highest earnings in stakes races whose conditions contain no restrictions other than age or sex. The final three places are given to horses with the highest total earnings in all races.

In addition, no horse finishing in the first five in the Kentucky Derby shall be denied a place in the Preakness Stakes, or the third Triple Crown race, the Belmont Stakes. 

There are also two "also-eligible horses," or reserves chosen. They become a starter should any of the first 14 be scratched before the scratch deadline.

History of the Preakness Stakes

The Preakness Stakes is the middle jewel in the U.S. Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing, run on the third Saturday in May at Pimlico Racecourse in Baltimore, Maryland. The winner earns a flower blanket of yellow Black-Eyed Susans and the coveted Woodlawn Vase, the most expensive trophy in American sports.

First run in 1873, the Preakness Stakes purse is now up to $2 million and attracts many of the U.S.'s premier three-year-old thoroughbreds. It is the featured event across Pimlico’s three-day May meeting, which includes a music concert in the infield. The race cultivates a carnival atmosphere around Baltimore, with rock stars and racegoers mingling at the betting windows.

The Preakness Stakes day total betting handle exceeds $90 million, a further $19 million bet on the previous day’s Black-Eyed Susan race day, as more than 120,000 ascend the "Old Hilltop."

About Pimlico Racecourse

The Preakness Stakes is run over 1 mile 1 1/2 furlongs on the dirt track at Pimlico Race Course in Maryland. The track is a 1-mile oval with a rise on the infield, giving the racetrack its nickname, "Old Hilltop." It opened in fall 1870, with the colt Preakness winning the first running of the Dinner Party Sakes. Three years later, that colt was honoured with the inaugural Preakness Stakes.

Pimlico is famous for the incredible match race between Seabiscuit and War Admiral on Nov. 1, 1938. A crowd of 43,000 watched as plucky Seabiscuit defeated 1937 U.S. Triple Crown hero War Admiral in the Pimlico Special, run over the same distance as the Preakness.

Preakness Stakes Winners Since 2013

Bob Baffert is the winningest active trainer with six victories. Three active jockeys have won the Preakness three times—Kent Desormeaux, Gary Stevens, and Victor Espinoza.

The Preakness Stakes odds can often throw up a shock, as the nature of the course and the placement on the calendar make it notoriously tricky to win.