In a wet Preakness 2024, these horses look the best

When it comes to handicapping races for wet tracks, I proceed with caution because of the small sample size of the many statistics that go into assessing off track performance, but that does not mean there are no clues to mine.

Of course, the conversation generally starts with who has run well, or not at all well, on an off track before. After the scratch of Muth from Preakness Stakes 2024, three of the expected eight starters have won on a not-fast track: favorite Mystik Dan and longer shots Seize the Grey and Uncle Heavy.

Mystik Dan was scintillating in an off-track Southwest Stakes (G3), but his win that day came with a nifty inside ride from jockey Brian Hernandez Jr.-a not dissimilar voyage from his Kentucky Derby triumph. There is reason to think the trip played as much a role in that win as track condition.

Seize the Grey broke his maiden last year in the off going, which was one of just six wins on an off-track since 2021 for his jockey Jaime Torres. Incidentally, Hernandez is one of the best jockeys in the country in dirt routes on a wet track.

Uncle Heavy is undefeated in two starts on an off track, and while I do not thing a wet Pimlico improves his chances to a likely winner by any stretch, he becomes an intriguing underneath use as the seventh choice of eight given his success under those conditions and the addition of Irad Ortiz Jr., a 25.5 percent rider on an off track.

Neither of the two horses I'm most interested in betting, Tuscan Gold and Imagination, have run on an off track. However, neither gives red flags for that condition. Tuscan Gold's dam and a half sibling of hers both won on an off track. Imagination's sire Into Mischief is 18 percent with his progeny on an off track while Imagination's half siblings have won eight races on off going.