Bob Baffert is not having good luck with post assignments when it comes to the Triple Crown Races this year. At the Kentucky Derby, Citizen Bull, who ended up being Baffert’s sole entrant, was assigned post No. 1 and ended up in fifteenth place, despite his strong performances early in the season, having won the G1 American Pharoah Stakes and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. With Rodriguez, Baffert’s best chance at win No.7, scratched at the last minute due to injury, the onus was on Citizen Bull to somehow recapture that early form and emerge an unlikely victor. However, it wasn’t to be, and he placed far behind this year’s Derby winner, Sovereignty, who raced out of post 18, a post that has a far better track record than post 1, based on the stats!
Post position, as Baffert will know, is important. And Bob Baffert seems to be unable to get away fromy #1 because his horse Goal Oriented has been assigned this same post for the Preakness Stakes. Now, while the posts are assigned totally randomly and it is unclear whether there is any truth to there being bad luck with this first post, the last win from post number 1 in the Kentucky Derby took place in 1986.
However, the good news is that post No. 1 is not as bad here as it is in Churchill Downs. After all, Baffert’s American Pharaoh rode to victory in the 2015 edition from the first post, as did the 2019 winner, War of Will. Even Bob Baffert acknowledged, “Once you draw, you can’t think about it. Last time I drew the one (post) here was with American Pharaoh. I drew the one with Lookin At Lucky. The one hole is not as bad here as it would be in the Derby.”
The official post positions and morning line odds for #Preakness150! pic.twitter.com/c1R1t1epqd
— Preakness Stakes (@PreaknessStakes) May 12, 2025
Now, while Preakness doesn’t necessarily have the same bad luck associated with post #1 as the Kentucky Derby does (there have been 13 wins from this position), it is still uncanny that Bob Baffert should score this position when it served him so badly prior. However, if he were to be the 14th winner from this position, it would mark his 9th Preakness win! If he doesn’t, then maybe there really is something to the positioning luck in the Triple Crown Races.
What posts are considered unlucky in the Preakness Stakes, and how might this affect Bob Baffert?
Well, first off, compared with the Kentucky Derby, it looks like Preakness also has that one super unlucky post that has not produced a single winner since the race’s institution. In the Kentucky Derby it’s post number 17, and in the Preakness Stakes it is post number 14. It’s clearly all very subjective and depends on subtle changes in wind speed and traffic in these particular lanes.
The luckiest lane one could score at Preakness is post number 6, which boasts 17 winners. Now, as compared to post #1 of Preakness that boasts 13, this doesn’t seem too bad, and Bob Baffert may not be as shaken by this assignment as the rest of us. Also considering Goal Oriented is the only horse in the race who is coming into this undefeated, he is probably feeling pretty good about the odds, with Flavien Prat, who won the 2021 Preakness race, riding his horse.
“He [Goal Oriented] is not as fast as these other horses on paper, but I think he is a good horse,” said the Hall of Famer ahead of the race. “I really thought he was a better fit than Rodriguez would have been.”
The thing with that number 1 post is it has pros and cons; horses that race from this position are generally considered to have less distance to cover around turns. However, racing from the inside of a twenty-horse lineup is obviously a daunting task, and not many horses or jockeys can handle the pressures of this position. Unfortunately, however, it’s all the luck of the draw when it comes to post numbers, and Bob Baffert, Goal Oriented, and Flavien Prat are just going to have to hope for the best with this one!
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