Probably Field for the 2013 Preakness Stakes & DRF odds

The Daily Racing Form has come out with the probable field for the Preakness, with Orb (the Derby winner), Normandy Invasion (4th), Mylute (5th), Goldencents, Itsmyluckyday, Oxbow, Vyjack and Will Take Charge being the colts returning from the Kentucky Derby.

Read more at: http://www.drf.com/news/2013-preakness-field-odds

Orb is set at 7-5 and rightly so. The newcomers are Departing, Governor Charlie, Titletown Five and Street Spice. An interesting side story here is that Departing and Orb were growing up in their early months on the same farm and can be referred to us "childhood buddies" (see Haskin's story here).

Coming back to the race itself, we have not looked at the different scenarios or past performances, but Titletown Five (from the Lukas barn) and Will Take Charge (who had to steady in the stretch) could definitely prove to be dangerous.

Who do you think will win the Preakness? Will Orb go on to win and be line for a Triple Crown..or will be get upset early and shift the elusive triple crown discussion to the next year?

Fun thread about new Trainer Legall on NYRA circuit

The quick news: Ricardo E. Legall used to be an exercise rider in the nyra circuit until recently. Congratulations on his first victory and we wish him the best of luck for many more.

Why am I posting this? Read on....

In what is turning out to be a humorous discussion, the victory of a filly named Jealous (foaled 2009) in a maiden race (6F) in her 7th career start, is generating a lot of buzz on the horse racing site/handicapping forum paceadvantage.

The original poster noted that this filly had fairly subpar performances till she switched to a new trainer, Ricardo E. Legall, and won her maiden race. The interesting matter was that this seems to be the first ever race for this trainer (at least if we go by Equibase stats). So, as of now, Ricky Legall has a 100% trainer win rate.

Now, the thread got humorous when one poster (and I thought about this too but didn't mention it there) started speculating about the trainer's name and how it sounds when you pronouce the middle initial and the last name together. Go ahead, try it ;).

Since the thread was getting hot and I was getting quite curious about this trainer,  I tried a few different searches on google, duckduckgo and bing. I found relevant answers quickly! But first...

Off topic slightly: During this search I came across a gem of a document showcasing various NYRA trainers here. [pdf download]

Back on topic: I found out that this mysterious new entrant into the NYRA training circuit, is not that mysterious at all. He seems to have been a regular exercise rider with several horses for leading trainer Anthony Dutrow. Below is a clip of him riding J W Blue in Aug 2011. We could say this with a high degree of accuracy. A source at NYRA confirmed that Ricky Legall did work as an exercise rider before and was happy to hear that Ricky won his first race!

Other links discussing Ricky Legall as an exercise rider can be found here and here. Anyways, this was a fun exercise for me to look up various information. Thanks for reading.