Here's a straw to grasp at if you're trying to beat Big Brown in the Preakness Saturday: He'll probably be the 15th odds-on Preakness favorite in the last 50 years, and 8 of the previous 14 lost -- including 5 of the last 6.
Here's how those 14, who ranged in price from 1-to-10 on Spectacular Bid in 1979 to 9-10 on Honest Pleasure in 1976, fared:
Note that Derby winners were 6-for-10 as odds-on Preakness favorites over the last 50 years. All four times that a horse other than the Derby winner was odds-on, he lost: Derby runners-up Easy Goer, Honest Pleasure and Hill Rise, and Derby-skipper Linkage.
A $2 win bet on all 14 odds-on Preakness favorites since 1957 would have cost $28 and returned $17.20, a 38.6 % loss on investment.