The numbers aren’t pretty for the new shooters in the Preakness. Of those Preakness starters who have skipped (or couldn’t get into) the Kentucky Derby, only three have won in the last 20 years. It’s certainly not because of under-representation either, as the last 16 runnings of the Preakness have featured 81 new shooters out of a total of 165 starters. That’s slightly over 49% of all Preakness starters during that time.

So what does it take for a new shooter to win the Preakness? Let’s take a look at the three who have done it in the last twenty years.

Unraced at two, Red Bullet stormed onto the Kentucky Derby trail in 2000, winning his first three races, culminating in the Gotham Stakes, his first start at two turns. After Red Bullet finished a non-threatening second in the Wood Memorial to eventual Kentucky Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus, trainer Joe Orseno, citing a lack of seasoning needed to compete in a 20 horse Kentucky Derby, deliberately pointed Red Bullet toward the Preakness, where he turned the tables on Fusaichi Pegasus as the bettors’ second choice.

In 2006, another unraced-at-two colt, Bernardini, burst onto the Triple Crown scene with a win in the Preakness. After exiting a one-turn mile maiden romp at Gulfstream Park, Bernardini bypassed allowance opportunities to proceed directly into graded stakes competition, winning the Withers in a hand ride. Although the colt had only three career races and no two turn experience, bettors let Bernardini go off a mild 12-1, by far the lowest price of any of the new shooters in the 2006 edition.

Rachel Alexandra needs no introduction. She upstaged the Kentucky Derby itself in 2009 when winning the Kentucky Oaks by a record 20-length margin. While many questioned the two-week turnaround heading into the Preakness, the betting public made her the 9/5 favorite at post time over a relatively uninspiring group that included the first four finishers from the Kentucky Derby.

Is there anything to be gleaned from these previous three Preakness winners while handicapping this year’s Preakness? Well, let’s preface these thoughts by saying that it’s tough to draw many conclusions with just a 20-race sample. However, there are some commonalities among these three. All three won graded stakes as 3-year-olds leading up to the Preakness. Both Red Bullet and Bernardini were late developing, lightly raced colts who flashed all the signals to make the successful class rise needed to win a Classic race. And frankly, Rachel Alexandra was a freak in top form last year.

So who among this year’s nine new shooters fits any of these molds? Only Flashpoint fits the mold of a lightly raced 3-year-old who has a graded stakes win this year, but the similarities between him, Red Bullet and Bernardini end there. Flashpoint exits a quizzically run fourth-place finish in the Florida Derby, bested eight lengths by Preakness rivals Shackleford and Dialed In. He was expected to be prominently a part of the early pace for his first start at two turns, and that just didn’t happen in the Florida Derby.

Frankly, the other eight new shooters don’t measure up to cracking the new shooter nut that previous non-Kentucky Derby runners have displayed. The only other graded stakes winner is Astrology, who won the Iroquois at Churchill Downs in late fall of last year. King Congie has a pair of listed stakes victoriess , winning the Hallandale Beach at Gulfstream and the Tropical Park Derby at Calder – both races on turf. The others – Norman Asbjornson, Sway Away, Dance City, Isn’t He Perfect, Concealed Identity and Mr. Commons – are all looking to win their first graded stakes. In a year when consistency has been hard to come by and longshots have ruled, stranger things have happened, but if recent history is any indication, one can reasonably throw out over half of this year’s Preakness entries for the top prize.