What time does 2023 Preakness Stakes start? What TV channel?

What time does the 2023 Preakness Stakes start? What TV channel is it on?

Preakness Stakes entrant Mage works out at Pimlico Race Course.

By John CherwaSpecial Contributor

May 20, 2023 4 AM PT

BALTIMORE —

It’s never easy being the middle child in a three-child family. You don’t have the status of being the first or the newness of being the third.

Now you know what the Preakness must feel like.

So, now it’s time for all you middle children out there to support the second leg of the Triple Crown. Or maybe you just like horse racing. Or maybe you just like to bet. Whatever the reason, you need to know what time is the Preakness on Saturday and where can you watch it?

Let’s get to that question first before we venture back into sibling rivalry.

If you are in Los Angeles Times-land, although we consider the whole country LAT-land, you can expect the race to go off at 4:01 p.m. PT. and it will be on the NBC affiliate Channel 4 and, of course, the streaming service Peacock, whose name origin is probably lost on anyone under 60.

Moving one zone east, to the Rocky Mountain time zone, it’s at 5:01 p.m. And we’ll pick Denver as its signature city and you can find the race on Channel 9.

Skipping another time zone to the Central and it’s 6:01 p.m. and everyone knows the city to pay attention to there is Chicago, where it can be found on Channel 5.

And finally, for those of you who might even be in Baltimore, or the city of New York, the race goes off locally at 7:01 p.m. In New York it’s Channel 4 or Channel 11 in Baltimore.

Let’s talk local Baltimore time. Coverage starts at 1 p.m. and goes to 4:30 p.m. ET on CNBC. Being the weekend, maybe there won’t be the annoying stock crawl at the bottom. The big NBC picks it up at 4:30 p.m. and goes to 7:30 p.m. You can figure the conversion.

If you want the early races, FanDuel TV will have Pimlico and a bunch of the other tracks. Once it gets to rights’ holder time, FanDuel will not be showing the races live.

Preakness Stakes entrant Blazing Sevens works out Wednesday.

We promised you more on sibling rivalry. So here it is. Last year, we included in a Preakness story this comparison of the Triple Crown to the kids on the now off-the-air show “Modern Family”. This is the creation of Ron Flatter, the managing editor of the website Horse Racing Nation.

“The Kentucky Derby is like Haley Dunphy, the glamorous one, very pretty, maybe not the brightest one but the one who attracts the most general interest,” Flatter said.

“The Belmont Stakes is like Luke Dunphy, precocious, but sometimes shows you moments of brightness and other times you wonder, ‘What is he thinking?’

“The Preakness is like Alex Dunphy. She is the one that is never going to disappoint you. She’s reliable. She always delivers something smart, something intelligent, something where you say, ‘We can build the future here.’ But often the forgotten one because of being the middle child.”

So well put.

OK, the major storyline people will be looking at for the Preakness, and no doubt endless NBC features, is Mage, winner of the Kentucky Derby. When he won, it was the first time in more than 50 years that the winning owner, trainer and jockey were all Latinos. Mage is starting to gain traction in the Latino community because it’s a fun story to get behind.

There are only seven horses in the race and, frankly, it’s not that good of a race. It’s the first time since 1948 that only one horse from the Kentucky Derby is entered in the Preakness. The reason then is that Citation was the horse. The reason this year is that trainers just don’t like to come back on two weeks’ rest.

And, one of the more important things to remember, the official drink of the Preakness is the Black-Eyed Susan. The most popular way to make it is to use orange and pineapple juice, orange liqueur and mix it with either vodka or rum.

What time does the 2023 Preakness Stakes start? What TV channel is it on?

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