2016 Preakness Stakes Box Betting Picks

If you are looking to make some real money that the 141t running of the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico on May 21, then you are going to have to take a little dip into the exotic bets. We will go with some straight up exotics in another post, but for those of you with some money to spend, you will definitely want to read on here, as I am going to talk about increasing your chances of winning by boxing your wagers. When your box your selections, you are playing the same horses, but giving yourself more potential winning combinations. Trying to figure out the exact finishing order of any race is difficult, but it gets a little easier when boxing your wagers, as it allows a little room for error, depending of course on how many horses you have on your ticket. To keep up with the latest odds for the 2016 Preakness Stakes Race make sure to visit our Horse Racing Lines portal.

2016 Preakness Stakes Box Picks

Boxing the exacta

With the exacta bet, you are predicting the order of finish for 1st and 2nd. A standard exacta ticket can be had for a single dollar, but that means you have to get the order right on the nose. Tough to do in this type of field, which is why the exacta box is a much safer option. I will usually choose 3 horses to box when placing an exacta wager, which means that there are 6 possible winning combinations on a single ticket. Your total ticket price is the number of combinations multiplied by your wager, which is this case would be $6 for a $1 stake. You can add as many horses as you like, but the ticket cost rises with each horse added. In the Preakness, I will likely go with Nyquist, Exaggerator, and Stradivari on my ticket, although I will wait until the post-position draw before making a final decision. Another option here is to go with the quinella. It actually works like an exacta box, although it delivers shorter odds than you get with the exacta.

Boxing the trifecta and superfecta

These box bets work on the very same principle used with the exacta box, only this time you are looking at more horses. The trifecta wager requires you to pick the order of finish for the top 3 horses, while the superfecta is a prediction of the top 4. Both are very difficult to get right when going straight up, but once again, the boxed ticket increases your number of winning combinations. A 4-horse trifecta box gives you 24 potential winning combinations on a single ticket, and will therefore cost $24 for a $1 stake. For this bet, I would be looking at adding Gun Runner, or something even longer priced, depending on how the draw goes. The superfecta box using 4 horses will cost you $24, but it goes all the way up to $120 if you want to add a 5th horse into the mix. It may seem like a lot of money, but if you can nail these exotics down, you could potentially be walking away with thousands of dollars, especially if one of your longshot selections gets on the board.