Steve Kornacki's guide to the Preakness Stakes: Biggest storylines, best bets

No Sovereignty, no problem. The Preakness Stakes on Saturday still has plenty of intrigue.

There’s no sense in wallowing in disappointment over the absence of Sovereignty, the Kentucky Derby winner, from Saturday’s 150th Preakness Stakes. His ownership and training team made it clear that they don’t consider the Triple Crown a prize worth chasing and instead are content to target the Belmont Stakes in early June. 

Fortunately, this year’s Preakness is still an appealing race with a mix of returnees from the Derby and promising newcomers that could be poised for stardom. The winning horse will likely earn a trip to the Belmont for a rendezvous with Sovereignty — and a chance to claim supremacy in the three-year-old division.

Here’s what I’m watching for ahead of Saturday’s race from Baltimore. 

Journalism, the beaten favorite in the Kentucky Derby, is the morning line favorite again in the Preakness. He outran 17 of his 18 rivals in the Derby, only finishing behind Sovereignty. On Saturday Journalism will face a field that is much smaller (eight horses) and full of question marks. 

The question for bettors, though, is what constitutes value with him. He’s listed at 8-5 in the morning line, which could be a steal on a horse of his caliber. But will those odds actually hold up or will the public all be thinking the same thing? The lower the odds, the greater the incentive to look elsewhere, especially when you consider the history of horses in this same spot: Nine beaten Derby favorites this century have turned around and contested the Preakness, but only two of them won.