Exaggerator has five straight top-five finishes and four outright wins in 10 career races. The Colt figures to be the biggest obstacle standing in Nyquist's way in this Saturday's Preakness Stakes.
Preakness Stakes 2016 odds: Exaggerator underdog vs. Nyquist on Saturday betting lines
Exaggerator and Nyquist enter the 2016 Preakness Stakes on Saturday afternoon as the clear odds favorites over the field at the sportsbooks.
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Exaggerator is going off at +375 odds to win the Preakness Stakes at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com. Heavy rain is in the forecast for Saturday, which figures to be an advantage for the Kentucky Derby runner-up. The two highest Beyer speed numbers of Exaggerator’s career have come on muddy tracks, as the colt ran a 103 Beyer in the Delta Downs Jackpot last November and a 102 in the Santa Anita Derby in April.
Trainer Keith Desormeaux has heralded Exaggerator for his exceptional bounce-back ability, which could factor into this race coming off the short two-week break. The colt will need every advantage he can get to top Nyquist, the -175 favorite to win the Preakness Stakes.
Nyquist lived up to the hype as the Kentucky Derby favorite, running a near-perfect trip to score the eighth straight win of his young career. The likely sloppy track is being pegged as an advantage for Exaggerator, but Nyquist’s trainers point out that the Kentucky Derby winner has a pedigree for wet tracks as well.
The Kentucky Derby marked the fourth time that Exaggerator and Nyquist have raced on the same track, and Nyquist has won all four of those runs.
Gun Runner joined an increasingly long list of Kentucky Derby horses not to run in the Preakness Stakes when his owner and trainer announced earlier this week that the Derby’s third-place finisher would be held out of the Preakness. With this announcement, the two biggest contenders left to disrupt the Top 2 are a pair of horses that didn’t race in the Kentucky Derby: Stradivari (+800) and Collected (+1600).
The Todd Pletcher-trained Stradivari has been training exceptionally well at Belmont and has won his last two races by considerable margins, making him a popular upset pick for those looking to avoid the chalk in the Preakness. Bob Baffert’s Collected could challenge Nyquist for the early lead and potentially factor into the exotic bets.
Rounding out the field are Cherry Wine (+2500), Awesome Speed (+3300), Uncle Lino (+3300), Abiding Star (+4000), Fellowship (+4000), Lani (+400), and Laoban (+4000).
