With the Preakness just more than a week away, all eyes are turned to Kentucky Derby victor Street Sense and the Triple Crown.

This year, the general consensus seems to be that the Preakness will be a rematch between Street Sense and the Derby pacesetter and runner-up, Hard Spun. Given the Derby both of them ran, that’s not a hard sell. The rest of the 3-year-olds in the country are a long way up the track behind those two. However, it is always worth remembering, as a gambler and a fan, that all the horses go into the same gate, and they have to run all the way around the track before the winner is declared. A lot can happen in two minutes. It’s important not to forget that every dog has his day.

Of course these dogs would have to find something very special in their feed that morning if they’re going to finish in front of Hard Spun or Street Sense. (And given the pressure from the press, and the controlled environment of the overnight barn, the chances of them finding anything like that in their oats are very slim.)

They will each have their day, somewhere else, some other time. Just note the reaction of Greg Fox, who trains Slew’s Tizzy. Upon watching the Derby, he decided to withdraw his well-thought-of-colt from the Preakness and went down to the Lone Star Derby to race. This implied that Fox didn’t want to run his horse in a race he wouldn’t win. Earlier this week, we learned that Sedgefield wouldn’t make the trip to Baltimore. Why run twice in two weeks? Why push the horse?

New horses? Yes, indeed. There are new horses on the horizon, and we’ll look at them next week and handicap them in their race against Curlin for third place.

It’s still horse racing, and anything can happen. Spectacular Bid lost the Belmont Stakes, Onion beat Secretariat, Upset beat Man o’ War, etc., but the Preakness is basically a match race and a race for third place. A week out, the question is not, “Who will win the Preakness?” but rather, “Will Hard Spun or Street Sense win the Preakness?”

Answering that question is difficult, and it brings us to a truism: Pimlico is a speed-favoring racecourse, with tight turns.

This will be said countless times between now and post time, but this truism just isn’t true. The turns at Pimlico are pretty much standard issue, and it isn’t particularly a speed-favoring track.

The fact is this: All tracks are speed-favoring tracks if the horse in front has the stamina to get all the way around to the wire. It’s hard to catch a horse that’s already got the lead, unless he gets tired.

During the past week at Pimlico, there have been only six races run at a distance greater than a mile. (What happens in shorter races doesn’t concern us, because the Preakness is 1 3/16 of a mile, around two turns.) This is far from scientific, I’m aware, but it’ll do for my purposes.

Of those six races, two of them were won by the horse that set the pace. Those two pacesetters, it’s interesting to note, were serious favorites. One race was run by a horse coming off second place after the leader had opened up a couple of lengths.

Three of the races were won by a horse running in third or farther back. The eighth race on May 6, the winner was up in the race (not settled into the back) but at the half-mile he was five lengths off the lead, running third. He took the lead on the stretch. In the sixth race on May 5, the winner ran the second turn four lengths off the lead in fourth and moved on the stretch to take it. In the eighth race the same day, the winner hit the stretch 10 lengths off.

This varied style of winning would continue no matter how many races we sampled because the track will not decide which horse takes it. Rain can decide who takes it, or a specific, unprecedented, and unforeseeable track condition might sway the balance, but the track itself, day to day, is fair.

The distance certainly gives the advantage to Hard Spun, he had a lot in the tank after setting the fractions at the Derby, and he’ll have half a furlong less to run next week.

Hard Spun’s trainer, Larry Jones, is promising to bring it, but he’s been contradicting himself as to what, exactly, he’s going to bring. On the one hand he’s said Hard Spun will do better on the front at Pimlico, because it’s a speed-favoring track (ahem), and on the other hand he said they’ll do something different.

Hard Spun has run off the pace twice. Once, in the Southwest Stakes, in which he finished fourth, and once because his jockey held him back, in the Lane’s End, which he won. Before those two races, he took control as quickly as he could, and his shortest margin of victory was five lengths. Hard Spun will bring the same race, he will get loose on the lead and cruise. Street Sense will come up on him. The track won’t hand either of them the race. They’ll have to duke it out on the stretch. I expect it to be much closer than the Derby, neck and neck. In fact, I expect it to be the race of the year.
mwatman@nysun.com