Ocelli's Strange Shot: Could a Maiden Make Preakness History?

A winless three-year-old came one length from rewriting the Kentucky Derby. On Saturday at Laurel Park, he gets a second swing at a record that has stood since 1888.

Ocelli has never won a horse race. Seven starts, zero trips to the winner's circle. By every measure that usually matters in graded stakes company, he should not be a serious factor in the 151st Preakness Stakes.

Then again, by every measure that usually matters in the Kentucky Derby, he should not have been a serious factor there either. He finished third anyway, beaten one length at 70-1, and walked off Churchill Downs with the highest last-out Equibase Speed Figure of any horse now pointed toward Baltimore.

If he wins on Saturday, he becomes the first maiden to capture the Preakness Stakes since Refund in 1888. That is 138 years.

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What is a maiden?

In horse racing, a maiden is a horse that has never won a race. Not a horse that finishes last every time. Just one that has not closed the deal yet. Most horses break their maiden in low-level company against other winless rivals, then climb the class ladder from there.

Triple Crown starters are typically the opposite of maidens. They are horses with multiple wins, graded stakes credentials, and proven résumés. A maiden in this field is closer to a college walk-on starting in the Final Four. It happens. It almost never works out.

A 138-year drought

The Preakness Stakes was first run in 1873. Six maidens won the race during the 1800s, when fields were smaller, the sport was looser, and the lines between class levels were nothing like they are today. But the last one was Refund in 1888. Since then, in 137 runnings of the race, no maiden has won.

Since 1980, only four maidens have even entered. Ocelli will be the fifth. The most recent was Bodexpress in 2019, and his Preakness ran more like performance art than a horse race.

The Bodexpress problem

When the gates opened at the 144th Preakness, Bodexpress reared and bucked Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez clean off his back. Velazquez hit the dirt. Bodexpress kept going.

For the next 1 3/16 miles, the 20-1 maiden ran the entire race with no rider, mostly on the outside, occasionally drifting into contention before drifting back out. War of Will won the actual race. Bodexpress, recorded as a Did Not Finish, ran an extra lap after the wire because outriders could not catch him.

He became a viral sensation, a parody Twitter account, and the answer to a trivia question. He also became the most recent reminder that maidens and the Preakness are a strange combination. Ocelli's connections will be hoping the resemblance ends at the species level.

How Ocelli got here

Ocelli is a three-year-old son of Connect, owned by Ashley Durr, Anthony Tate, and Front Page Equestrian, trained by D. Whitworth Beckman and ridden by Tyler Gaffalione. His path to the Preakness was unremarkable for six starts. A third in a Fair Grounds maiden race. A sixth in the Sam F. Davis at Tampa Bay Downs. A sixth in the Virginia Derby behind fellow Preakness entrant Incredibolt.

The seventh start changed things. Beckman pulled the blinkers off for the Wood Memorial, and Ocelli rallied from tenth to third, finishing 1 1/4 lengths behind the winner. The speed figure jumped. So did the confidence.

In the Kentucky Derby, he did it again, only better. Steadied at the start, bumped at the top of the stretch, in front at the sixteenth pole, then run down by Golden Tempo and Renegade in the final strides. His 99 Equibase Speed Figure was the best last-out number in the entire Preakness field. He came up one length short of becoming the first maiden to win the Kentucky Derby since 1933.

In other words: by the numbers, the horse most likely to upset the Preakness is one that has never won anything.

The case for Ocelli and the case against

For. The pace setup at Laurel Park looks tailor-made for closers. Taj Mahal on the rail, Chip Honcho from Post 6, and Pretty Boy Miah out wide all want to be near the lead, which means somebody has to fold. When the pace collapses, ground-saving deep closers benefit. Ocelli drew Post 2 with Gaffalione back in the saddle and the best last-out speed figure in the field. Those are not throwaway facts.

Against. Laurel Park's stretch is shorter than the long Churchill Downs straightaway that gave Ocelli room to wind up at the Derby. Maidens have gone 0-for-4 in the Preakness since 1980. No horse has broken his maiden in a Triple Crown race since the early days of the Great Depression. And at 6-1 morning line, the price does not generously compensate for the degree of difficulty. He is being bet like a contender, not a curiosity.

What to watch on Saturday

Ocelli will not be near the early lead. He almost never is. Expect to find him in the back half of the field for the first six furlongs, with Gaffalione holding him together while the speed horses sort themselves out up front.

The cue is the three-eighths pole. If Ocelli has tipped out and started gaining ground on the field by then, with the leaders showing signs of stress, he is live. If he is still flat-footed at the top of the stretch, the Laurel surface will not give him enough real estate to make a Derby-style closing run.

A footnote either way

Iron Honor is the morning-line favorite. Napoleon Solo and Incredibolt are the chic value plays. Any of them could win, and the race will be remembered for whoever does.

But Ocelli is the story regardless of the result. If he loses, he is the maiden who came two lengths short of two pieces of Triple Crown history in two weeks. If he wins, he is the answer to the trivia question that has not had a new answer since Grover Cleveland was president.

Either way, on the first Saturday the Preakness has ever been contested at Laurel Park, the most interesting horse in the field is the one that has never won a race.

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