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BALTIMORE - OK, who are these guys?

They are 12 horses entered in tomorrow's 133d Preakness Stakes who will try to beat Kentucky Derby winner Big Brown, the prohibitive 1-2 favorite.

At yesterday's Alibi Breakfast, a Pimlico tradition since the 1930s at which horsemen gather and swap stories, trainers and owners gave it their best shot as to why Big Brown's quest to become the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978 will end here.

But no one really had a convincing argument. "It looks like Big Brown's party," said Yankee Bravo trainer Patrick Gallagher. "We're just happy to be part of it."

Even a veteran trainer like Nick Zito, who will enter Stevil, a 30-1 shot, wasn't convincing.

"I'm from the old school," said Zito, who has entered 19 horses in the Preakness, including 1996 winner Louis Quatorze. "You still have to run the race. Stevil has been a very consistent horse.

"The story here is, without question, Big Brown. To say anybody on paper is going to beat Big Brown is going to be a hard stretch. However, they don't run on paper, they run on dirt."

The argument for Hey Byrn, a 20-1 shot running from the No. 13 post, which has never produced a Preakness winner, was just as philosophical.

"We all have the same horse to beat," said trainer Eddie Plesa Jr. "But it is still a horse race."

But will it be a race in which 12 horses run for place and show, while Big Brown, running out of the No. 7 post and a winner of his four career races by a combined 33 3/4 lengths, runs for the history books?

If that is the case, who will emerge from the pack of "other horses," 11 of which didn't run in the Derby? It depends on the criteria. Take Icabad Crane, who could be put in the "horse for course" category. Icabad Crane is trained by H. Graham Motion and is the only horse who has run a race at Pimlico, winning the Federico Tesio Stakes last month. Add jockey Jeremy Rose, who was aboard Afleet Alex when he won the Preakness and Belmont in 2005, and there is reason for confidence.

Motion is doing his best to avoid the Preakness hype, keeping Icabad Crane at the rural Fair Hills training facility in Northern Maryland all week. "We don't want to take him out of his routine," said Motion, who will make the hour drive to Pimlico tomorrow morning with his horse. "We've had a lot of experience shipping horses on Preakness day."

Motion said Icabad Crane's win in the Tesio prompted the decision to run him in the Preakness. "The Preakness was something we thought about right after the Tesio," said Motion. "He had a good race over the track. He won the Tesio despite having some trouble, and the second-place finisher [Mint Lane] came back to finish second in the Peter Pan, which somewhat endorses the race."

If you want a more proven commodity, perhaps Gayego, the second choice in the morning line at 8-1, becomes more logical, although it is difficult to explain why this meeting with Big Brown will be any different than in the Derby, when Gayego finished 17th, some 36 lengths back.

"He came back very well," said Gayego's trainer, Paulo Lobo. "He's been eating everything. He's feeling happy. He's a big, strong horse."

Or maybe the challenger, if there is one, will be Kentucky Bear, a 15-1 shot who was unraced as a 2-year-old and has only three career starts, including a third in the Blue Grass Stakes. Or perhaps Florida-based Hey Byrn.

"He's matured from a 2-year-old to a 3-year-old," said Plesa of Hey Byrn. "This horse, the older he gets, the better he gets. He's proven it. We've just run fourth in the Florida Derby [won by Big Brown], he ran two weeks later and won the Holy Bull, and now he's training super. We can't ask him for any better."

Kentucky Bear didn't run in the Derby because he didn't have enough graded-stakes earnings. "[Big Brown] is beatable," said his trainer, Reade Baker. "He beat all those horses at Churchill Downs, but he didn't beat us."

All of this begs another question, which Big Brown's trainer, Rick Dutrow, was happy to answer. Does he expect another rollover for his horse?

"Yes," he said, then added, "just stop talking and go to the [betting] window."

Mark Blaudschun can be reached at blaudschun@globe.com.