Clowns to the left of him, jokers to the right, there he is, stuck in the middle.

Big Brown, the Kentucky Derby winner, landed smack dab in the middle of the field, in post 7, when posts were drawn Wednesday evening for the 13 3-year-olds entered to run in the 133rd Preakness Stakes on Saturday at Pimlico Race Course.

Bettors are expected to make Big Brown a heavy favourite against a field of horses who, with one exception, were not accomplished enough even to challenge him in the Derby.

Both Mike Watchmaker, Daily Racing Form's national handicapper, and Frank Carulli, the linemaker at Pimlico, have Big Brown a prohibitive favourite. Watchmaker has him at 3-5, while Carulli pegged Big Brown even shorter, at 1-2.

Behindatthebar, the Lexington Stakes winner, is the second choice on Watchmaker's morning line, at 10-1, with Gayego, the Arkansas Derby winner, next at 12-1. Carulli has Gayego the second choice at 8-1, with Behindatthebar the third choice at 10-1.

Big Brown broke from the outside in a 20-horse field in the Derby, and from the outside in a 12-horse field in the Florida Derby. He won those races by 4 3/4 and five lengths, respectively.

Big Brown is unbeaten in four starts. He has been favoured in his last three races, and will be again on Saturday, but the Preakness will be the first time he has been an odds-on favourite.

The draw was a traditional double-blind draw, with an entry card pertaining to each horse being pulled concurrent with a numbered pill deposited from a bottle.

Behindatthebar wound up in post 5, while Gayego landed post 12, meaning Gayego will be one spot from the outside, just as he was in the Derby.

Gayego "had a terrible trip" in the Derby when he broke from post 19, according to his jockey, Mike Smith.

"He didn't break and then he ducked in from the crowd," Smith said. "I was never in it - never in the race."

The field, from the rail out, is Macho Again (Julien Leparoux the rider), Tres Borrachos (Tyler Baze), Icabad Crane (Jeremy Rose), Yankee Bravo (Alex Solis), Behindatthebar (David Flores), Racecar Rhapsody (Robby Albarado), Big Brown (Kent Desormeaux), Macho Again (Jamie Theriot), Stevil (John Velazquez), Riley Tucker (Edgar Prado), Giant Moon (Ramon Dominguez), Gayego (Smith), and Hey Byrn (Chuck Lopez).

Icabad Crane is the only horse who has ever raced previously at Pimlico. He won last month's Federico Tesio Stakes here.

The Preakness, the shortest of the Triple Crown races at 1 3/16 miles, is the 12th race on a 13-race Pimlico card. The purse for the Preakness is $1 million, with $600,000 going to the winner. For Big Brown, though, the stakes are higher, because he will be seeking to keep his hopes alive of becoming the first Triple Crown winner in 30 years.

Big Brown faced 19 rivals in the Derby. Of the 12 horses entered against him in the Preakness, only one, Gayego, ran in the Derby, finishing 17th. The other 11 horses all skipped the Derby, either intentionally or - in the case of Kentucky Bear - because of insufficient earnings in graded stakes races.

The Preakness is capped at 14 runners, so no horses were excluded from the race. Still, the number of runners was far more than anyone would have expected immediately following the Derby, in which Big Brown was an overpowering winner. Most trainers concede their horses are likely running for second-place money of $200,000 on Saturday.

The weather was delightful in Baltimore on Tuesday and Wednesday, with highs in the mid-70s, but it is expected to be unsettled later in the week. According to Weather.com, there is a 60 percent chance of thunderstorms on Friday, with a high temperature of 63 degrees. Saturday's forecast is for a high of 73 degrees, and a 20 percent chance of rain.

Courtesy: NTRA