Preakness Field 2015: Pinpointing Underrated Horses and Jockeys in Lineup

This year's Preakness Stakes marks the 140th running of the Grade 1 spectacle, and one colt—American Pharoah—will be looking to continue his run at racing's most prestigious honor, the Triple Crown.

Once again, Pharoah looks like the horse to beat here, but what about some colts who could look to spoil his and trainer Bob Baffert's fun on Saturday?

Well, given the fact that the field is so small here in 2015—only eight horses will participate in the Run for the Black-Eyed Susans—it becomes increasingly difficult to pinpoint a truly "underrated" horse, but that's what I'm going to try to do here.

Before we get to the breakdown, though, I'm going to give you a quick walk-through on the full lineup of horses running in the Preakness. From there, we can get into a deeper look at some underrated horses and their riders in this year's field.

Let's get started.

Full Lineup

Post Position	Horse	Odds	Trainer	Jockey
1	American Pharoah	10-13	Bob Baffert	Victor Espinoza
2	Dortmund	15-4	Bob Baffert	Martin Garcia
3	Mr. Z	25-1	D. Wayne Lukas	Corey Nakatani
4	Danzig Moon	14-1	Mark Casse	Julien Leparoux
5	Tale of Verve	50-1	Dallas Stewart	Joel Rosario
6	Bodhisattva	50-1	Jose Corrales	Trevor McCarthy
7	Divining Rod	20-1	Arnaud Delacour	Javier Castellano
8	Firing Line	17-4	Simon Callaghan	Gary Stevens

First, let's be honest: This is a very, very top-heavy field. Outside of the top three choices, there isn't really much to work with, and I think that's captured well by Jessica Paquette—Bleacher Report's resident horse racing expert—in the video below.

Throw out Tale of Verve and Bodhisattva immediately. Don't think about it, just do it.

Mr. Z has worked against some quality animals in the past, with starts coming in the Breeders' Futurity, the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, the Los Alamitos Futurity and the Arkansas Derby, among others, prior to his 10th-place finish in the Kentucky Derby.

So he's shown class in the past. That's a good thing, right?

Yes and no. With a quick look at Mr. Z's past performances in comparison to the rest of the field, one major thing should jump right off the page.

Mr. Z has run 13 races (!) in a wild 11-month period, and the Derby will certainly prove to be more of an aberration than a sign of things to come. That kind of work tab for a three-year-old is a little much for me, and while he won't finish dead last, he won't finish in the money either.

Mr. Z has class, but he doesn't belong in this race. In fact, it appears as though the only reason the Malibu Moon colt is running Saturday is that he was just sold to Calumet Farm and trainer D. Wayne Lukas really, really wants the entry.

That's three horses thrown out, and we're not considering the top three favorites—American Pharoah, Firing Line and Dortmund—in this piece either. 

That leaves us with Divining Rod and Danzig Moon as our "sleeper" picks, which we'll analyze below.

Underrated Horses and Riders

Danzig Moon

Danzig Moon ran a solid race in the Derby and although he finished fifth, I was rather impressed by the way the colt maintained his composure throughout the race.

By the 3/4 mile mark, the Malibu Moon colt was a distant fifth, running behind a stacked field of runners—Dortmund, Firing Line, American Pharoah and Carpe Diem, respectively—and giving way to just one horse, Frosted, en route to that fifth-place finish.

Beyond that fifth-place finish, though, Danzig Moon has some solid races under his belt, with his best effort coming in the Grade 1 Blue Grass.

As you can see in the video below, Danzig Moon ran most of his race a few lengths back of the leading group—Ocho Ocho Ocho and Carpe Diem. Perhaps more impressive than his coming from nearly four lengths back of the lead is the fact that Danzig Moon ran wide around the whole track and kicked into the five path before finishing three lengths back of Carpe Diem.

Nobody was going to beat Carpe Diem, but Danzig Moon finished gamely despite running wide around the back stretch and wide again in the turn for home. Whether he can come back strong in just two weeks' time is a bit of a question mark, but I'm willing to take the risk.

Danzig Moon will saddle jockey Julien Leparoux for Saturday's Grade 1.

Leparoux is an experienced rider and while he doesn't have a Preakness win to speak of, he did log a second-place finish aboard Macho Again in his 2008 Preakness debut and a fourth-place finish with Dialed In back in 2011.

Leparoux will be overlooked here due to (1) not having won a Preakness and (2) his relative lack of experience in the race compared to top jockeys like Gary Stevens.

Make no mistake about it, though, Leparoux is a dangerous rider—he ranks 18th with over $2.7 million in earnings this year. Factor in Danzig Moon's preference for riding mid-pack, and he and Leparoux could make for an intriguing combination come race day.

Divining Rod

Divining Rod is another horse I'm really high on, and maybe to a fault.

The Tapit colt comes from outstanding bloodlines, including a Tapit-Pulpit-A.P. Indy-Seattle Slew sire line, which has produced incredible results—Untapable, Tonalist, Frosted, Hansen and about a billion other quality runners come from this paternal line.

Divining Rod is going to be one of the freshest horses in this race, coming off of a one-month layoff. His last time out, though, was an impressive three-length win in the Grade 3 Lexington Stakes, shown below:

The Arnaud Delacour-trained colt worked through modest quarter-mile fractions of 23.87 seconds, 24.76 seconds and 24.51 seconds, respectively, before gaining the lead in the stretch run.

What was most impressive about this win was the finishing power Divining Rod showed. Between the start of the stretch run and the finish line, Divining Rod added two lengths to his lead and finished gamely, suggesting that the move to 1 3/16 miles should be something he handles well.

Aboard Divining Rod will be Javier Castellano who, once again, is leading North American riders in earnings for the 2015 season. Castellano also finished the 2014 and 2013 seasons as the earnings leader on the North American circuit, via Equibase.com.

Though he only has three Preakness mounts to his credit, Castellano managed a win aboard the great Bernardini back in 2006.

Don't hold those measly three mounts against him, though, as Castellano hasn't had a whole boatload of opportunities to ride in the Run for the Black-Eyed Susans. Javier is one of the preferred riders for Todd Pletcher—John Velazquez being the other—and if yesterday's news was any indication, Pletcher doesn't trend toward the Preakness and usually saves his big guns for the Belmont.

Castellano is as good as they come, and he's going to put Divining Rod in the best position possible to win this Saturday.

Follow me on Twitter! Follow @TylerDuma