Preakness 2017: Post time, TV schedule, contenders, and more

The 2017 Preakness Stakes will be run on Saturday, May 20, at approximately 6:45 p.m. ET. The second jewel of horse racing’s Triple Crown is held each year two weeks after the Kentucky Derby, and this year all eyes will be on Always Dreaming as he tries to become the 36th horse to win the first two races of the feat. However, Classic Empire, step-brother of the last Triple Crowner winner, American Pharoah in 2015, and eight other Preakness contenders will be trying to stamp their name in the history books, as well.

It looks to be a pretty great race. Always Dreaming has put up good speed numbers in both of his last two races, going back to the Florida Derby in April. He won both races by a comfortable margin. But Classic Empire was thought to be the best of the three-year-old breeding class after proving himself to be the best two-year-old in 2016. He won the Arkansas Derby after a tough start to the year, and overcame a poor beginning of the Kentucky Derby to still finish fourth. The two horses are starting next to each other in the Pimlico gates.

Five newcomers, including Cloud Computing and Conquest Mo Money, will try to make the entire narrative moot, and just might do so. Conquest Mo Money has a start from the outside and could make good use of his speed.

But if Always Dreaming can pull this off, he’ll have a chance in three weeks at Belmont to become just the 13th horse to win the Triple Crown. That would be pretty exciting, too.

NBC will broadcast the Preakness Stakes beginning at 5 p.m. Saturday. You can stream it live online, or through the NBC Sports app, which is available on the iTunes AppStore, Google Play, Windows Store, Roku Channel Store, Apple TV, and Amazon Fire.

Before the Preakness itself, the undercard will be shown on NBCSN (and you can follow live at the link above) at 2:30 p.m.

Always Dreaming was a near even-money Preakness odds favorite to win the Preakness not long after the conclusion of the Kentucky Derby. The official morning line odds stated on Wednesday were 4/5, meaning you’d have to bet $125 to make $100. According to Bovada earlier in the month, Always Dreaming had 3/1 odds of winning the Triple Crown. He is trained by Todd Pletcher and is directed by jockey John Velazquez.

Although Always Dreaming seems like the easy pick, if you look around at a lot of the experts you’ll get another story — and for good reason. The experts see a horse in Classic Empire who has not managed to reach his potential yet and has a great opportunity to do so. Trained by Mark Casse and with jockey Julien Leparoux atop, Classic Empire could take advantage of the smaller Preakness field and exact some revenge.