Animal Kingdom will receive some heavy 2011 Triple Crown picks if he can cruise past the top contenders in the Preakness Stakes today. After winning the Kentucky Derby as a 20-1 longshot, jockey John Velazquez is comfortable about his Preakness Stakes odds, as is the racebook at SBGGlobal.com, where Animal Kingdom is an overwhelming 2-1 favorite over the field. Animal Kingdom ran over his rivals at Churchill after racing many lengths behind the slowest Derby pace in a quarter-century. With Flashpoint, Dance City, and others expected to run in the Preakness, the pace is likely to be much quicker. Either way, Animal Kingdom is a legitimate shot to stir up the horse racing world and is very capable of winning the second leg, so keep him in all your exacta and trifecta predictions.

Animal Kingdom is not a stranger to a short track. At Turfway, where the stretch run is brief, he had taken the lead more than a furlong from the finish of the Spiral. Animal Kingdom has won races from on the pace (Keeneland maiden), from last place while making multiple moves up the rail (Spiral), and from mid-pack with one long sustained run (Derby). He looks like a horse with a ton of stamina who is a real athlete. Starting from the middle of the pack won’t hurt either, so drawing the 10th post make his horse racing odds a bit more appealing.

The only concerns for jockey John Velazquez and Animal Kingdom is lack of activity. He ran the Kentucky Derby after a six-week break and made only one other start in 2011. Given his limited racing foundation, skeptics wonder if his Derby performance will lead to a carryover effect. Trainer Graham Motion’s methods however, have been known to work against regression. Motion is not one of those trainers who sits on a horse, then sends him out for one huge performance, as his horses tend to hold baseline form over longer periods. I wouldn’t look too much into what some people may call a weakness as this is simply nothing more than an opinion, and an unpopular one at that.

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