Take N.Y. Financier’s Liveyourbeastlife at 30-1 in the Preakness

(Bloomberg) -- William Lawrence, a New York hedge-fund guy, has for years teamed up with a much more famous hedge-fund savant, Seth Klarman, to buy racehorses.

Invariably, the two men, along with an old friend of Klarman’s, slap awfully nerdy financial names on their young colts and fillies. There was Currency Swap and Minsky Moment and Pricedtoperfection and Money Multiplier.

But every once in a while, Lawrence will strike out on his own and buy a horse under his name alone. Which is how we got Liveyourbeastlife -- a name that would seem to have very little in common with the likes of Merger Arbitrage and Fed Watcher -- running in the Preakness Stakes on Saturday.

Now for most of his young career, Lawrence’s beast was a pretty mediocre sort, content to cross the finish line surrounded by his pals in the middle of the pack. But a few months back, the beast’s conditioner started entering him in longer-distance races and, lo and behold, the beast responded. He ran a good third back in July, then scored a gritty win, and then made a late charge to take second in a stakes race last month.

The beast, to be clear, is probably in over his head in the Preakness. He remains a quirky colt who sort of runs in fits and starts, and he’s never faced this caliber of horses before. If he winds up getting beaten by 15 lengths, I certainly wouldn’t be surprised.

But it’s also possible that he’s a late bloomer who’s really coming into his own now. And he’ll go off at a fat price -- around 30-1. I’ll take my chances at those odds and plunk a couple bucks on him to win and then slide him underneath one of the race favorites, Art Collector, in a straight exacta.

What about my can’t-lose Derby horse who lost, you ask? Well, Tiz the Law, it turns out, is skipping the Preakness as he prepares for the Breeders’ Cup Classic in a month’s time. And it says here that he will vanquish all rivals in that race and, in so doing, cement his claim to Horse of the Year honors.

(David Papadopoulos, a senior editor at Bloomberg News, is a voter in the thoroughbred industry’s annual Eclipse Awards. He has been publishing his Triple Crown picks since 2012.)

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