We started handicapping Saturday's Preakness Stakes moments after Super Saver crossed the finish line in the Kentucky Derby on top by two and a quarter lengths.
After poring over past performances, watching endless replays of the Derby, interviewing trainers, dealing Tarot cards and reading tea leaves, we arrived at this conclusion: Dublin will win, cutting short Super Saver's march to the Triple Crown.
We did it by process of elimination.
NEW SHOOTERS: As is often the case, most of this year's Preakness field — seven of 12 — did not run in the Derby. Since 1983, only three such "new shooters" won the Preakness: Red Bullet, Bernardini and Rachel Alexandra.
Aikenite, Schoolyard Dreams, Pleasant Prince, Northern Giant, Yawanna Twist, Caracortado and First Dude do not appear to be in their league.
As for the horses that did run for the roses:
JACKSON BEND: This little guy ran 12th in the Derby, the first time in 10 starts he finished worse than second. All of his wins, however, came at Calder, and he has not won a race since October.
PADDY O'PRADO: He was the "wiseguy horse" Derby week after working a bullet five furlongs in :58 2/5 in the slop. Then he caught a sloppy track and ran to the work, finishing third.
Paddy O'Prado's Beyer number jumped from 87 to a lifetime high 100 that day. Can you say "bounce?"
LOOKIN AT LUCKY: Breaking from the rail as the Derby favorite, he was bumped at the break, then sawed off a furlong into the race. Still, he rallied from 18th to finish sixth.
That nightmare trip has bettors jumping on the Lucky bandwagon. That, and the fact that in 2001 Bob Baffert's Point Given won the Preakness by two and a quarter lengths after finishing fifth as the Derby favorite.
But last year, many jumped on the Pioneerof the Nile bandwagon after he ran second for Baffert in the Derby; he finished 11th at Pimlico. Those betting Lucky at a short price could fall into the same trap.
SUPER SAVER: His tactical speed gives him an edge in this paceless field. But he got a perfect trip in the Derby, while many others did not. Each of Calvin Borel's Derby winners — Street Sense, Mine That Bird and Super Saver -- has been many lengths better at Churchill than any other racetrack. Street Sense, for example, won the Breeders' Cup Juvenile by 10 and the Derby by two and a quarter, but he lost the Preakness to Curlin after leading in the stretch.
DUBLIN: He ran a deceptively good race in the Derby. Breaking from post 17, he was squeezed in the early going, dropped back to 15th, made a sustained run into contention down the backside, then circled the field with an eye-catching rally on the far turn to finish seventh. And he did it all blind.
"When we took off his blinkers, big gobs of mud dropped out," said his Hall-of-Fame trainer, D. Wayne Lukas. "He couldn't see."
Lukas has won the Preakness five times, twice with horses — Tank's Prospect and Tabasco Cat — that were off-the-board in the Derby. Furthermore, Dublin fits the profile of horses that "loomed boldly" on the far turn at Churchill — Little Current, Master Derby, Risen Star, Point Given and Curlin, to name a few — then came back to win at Pimlico.
