Preakness Stakes 2016 post positions: Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist will start in 3rd spot

Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist will begin the 2016 Preakness Stakes in the third position of the gate at Pimlico Race Course on Saturday, while Derby runner-up Exaggerator will break from the fifth spot. Nyquist has been set at 3-5 morning line odds. Exaggerator checks in at 3-1, while Stradivari is at 8-1.

Unlike in the Kentucky Derby, the post position draw for the Preakness doesn’t seem to have much effect on any horse’s chances of winning. Almost every gate has hosted a winner in the past 15 years, and most recently American Pharoah earned a victory starting on the rail last year.

You only have to go back to 2014 to find the last winner from the third position: California Chrome, who also won the Kentucky Derby that year, while Shackleford won from the fifth spot in 2011.

Trained by Doug O’Neill and ridden by Mario Gutierrez, Nyquist is a perfect 8-for-8 in his career. The last undefeated (at the time) Triple Crown winner was Seattle Slew in 1977, so Nyquist would have good company if he were to win his next two starts.

Stradivari, trained by Todd Pletcher and ridden by John Velazquez, will start on the far outside at the No. 11 spot. Sired by Medaglia d’Oro, who placed second in the Belmont Stakes in 2002, Stradivari has run in just three career races. He won at a mile-and-one-sixteenth as a 2-year-old and a mile-and-an-eighth as a 3-year-old.

The other plot to keep an eye on as Saturday draws nearer is weather. There is a 100 percent chance of rain, with Forecast.io calling for heavy rain earlier, with it tapering slightly as the day progresses. Trained by Keith Desormeaux and jockeyed by Kent Desormeaux, Exaggerator has already proven himself to be strong in the mud, as he won the Grade I Santa Anita Derby in California on a mucky track. However, Nyquist is no stranger to it either, and won a damp Grade I Florida Derby himself.

“Running in the mud is kind of like running on the turf,” Keith Desormeaux told DRF.com. “It mainly depends on pedigree, and Nyquist has just as much mud pedigree as Exaggerator, so it’s not like we’re going to be at an advantage, I don’t think.”

The morning line will be announced immediately following the draw.

The Preakness can be viewed on NBC at 6:45 p.m. ET Saturday (coverage begins at 5 p.m. following the hockey game), or streamed on NBC Sports Live Extra.