Nine horses will be called to the post tomorrow to race 1 3/16 miles for $1 million in the 132nd running of the Preakness. Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense is the Big Horse, the favorite, and the horse to beat.

With a smaller field and a shorter distance, the Preakness is a more straightforward race than the Derby. (Or the forthcoming Belmont Stakes.) But it’s not easy. It’s a million-dollar Grade 1 classic with its own problems, the biggest of which is timing: The Preakness is two weeks after the Derby. The short-money horses here were pointed to Kentucky, and the trainers picked their preps all spring with that in mind. Street Sense, for instance, ran twice this year leading up to the Derby — twice in four months, and now he’s going to run twice in two weeks. Hard Spun came into the Derby off of six weeks’ rest.

There are two ways to think about this. You can choose to believe that the horse is burnt out, or you can choose to believe that the horse is in the same, or better, condition than he was going into the Derby. Whatever you decide, don’t listen to the trainers, as a good chunk of their job is to make everyone think their horse is in tip-top shape no matter what.

Another item on the list of duties fulfilled by thoroughbred trainers is the arbitrary assignment of useful myths to their own situation. Pimlico fills this order nicely, as there are many preconceptions about racing there. Larry Jones, the trainer of Derby pacesetter and place horse Hard Spun, has been playing into them all week with his talk of homecoming. Jones said that jockey Mario Pino has won more races in Maryland than any other jockey: “We’re going to Pino country and hopefully, he’ll carry the rest of this team.”

One certainly hopes that Hard Spun’s big game will include more than the idea that Pimlico is his jockey’s home court. Every track is idiosyncratic, surely, but the idiosyncrasies at Pimlico are overblown, not nearly as dramatic as they’d have us believe. And for Pino to rely upon the idea that the turns are tight, or that the early speed will be favored, well, he might as well be saying he’s got an extraterrestrial in his closet that’s going to make his horse fly around the track.

Steve Asmussen, the trainer of the once highly touted Derby show horse Curlin, has more concrete plans, and his, I think, will be the key factor in the way the race unfolds.

Curlin was startled by the mud in his face at the Derby, but Asmussen “was surprised he didn’t run any quicker the first 50 yards of the race before any of the dirt or any of that came into play.”

He doesn’t want to see Curlin get so far back, watch for him up front as the race begins, with the other speed horses here that will make this race very different from the one we saw on the first Saturday in May, where Hard Spun had a comfortable lead all to himself.

Here’s how it plays: And they’re off! Xchanger jumps to the inside and Curlin is right there with him. A very fast start for Flying First Class, with Hard Spun on the outside of that one as the horses move past the grandstand for the first time. Hard Spun is on the outside, in fourth, locked in a pace scenario with Flying First Class that will not end well for either.

Mint Slewlep and King of the Roxy are chasing the leaders.

Settled in the back are C P West, Street Sense, and Circular Quay.

Hard Spun goes into the first turn on the outside, Curlin has put a head in front of Xchanger, the first half mile goes in 46 and change, just like the Derby. But Flying First Class can be a very fast horse, and the moment Xchanger gives up, Flying First Class will be there. The 3/4 mile fraction at the Derby was 1:11, Flying First Class led the field in the Derby Trial at Churchill Downs in 1:08 3/5.

If the 3 /4 fraction is anything like that, none of the front running horses will be able to get under the wire. The only problem for the closers will be whether or not they can get around all the staggering, exhausted horses at the top of the stretch — and this is doubly true if it rains.

James Tafel, the owner of Street Sense, said, “If Street Sense runs his race … I don’t think anybody can [beat him]. But, if something peculiar happens, if he gets bumped, he gets tripped, he gets bitten, or whatever, you know, all of the vagaries of horse racing, but if he runs his race and he sees daylight at the top of the stretch, then I’m very confident of our ability to win the race.”

I agree.

Coming out of the Derby, I felt certain we were going to be set up for a wonderful Triple Crown duel between Hard Spun and Street Sense. Now, I suspect Hard Spun isn’t going to handle this. He’s not going to like racing back so quick, and he’s not going to get the trip he wants. He’s going to have company in the front. He’s going to be spent around the second turn, and he’ll get in the way of the closers, an advantage that will probably go to Circular Quay since everyone has their eye on Street Sense.

If Borel can pilot Street Sense by the tiring horses he’ll open up two lengths on Circular Quay, and we’ll head to Belmont with visions of a Triple Crown.

mwatman@nysun.com