On the day before the Preakness, the streets around Pimlico Race Course were mostly quiet. A few residents were out selling water and trinkets, but aside from the main roads—Park Heights Avenue, Belvedere Avenue, Northern Parkway—the residential neighborhood sleepily enjoyed a perfect summer day, residents hanging out on their porches, sitting beneath trees, playing in…
From the moment a horse crosses the finish line in the Kentucky Derby (and sometimes even before that), Triple Crown obsession begins. The racing world, in which few interested parties, from track executives to marketers to bettors, can agree, comes as close to consensus as it gets in hoping that a horse will sweep the…
Pimlico: The Grade I, $1.5 million Preakness at 1 3/16 miles #1 American Pharoah (4-5): Kentucky Derby hero parlayed a perfect post and dream trip to glory when he pulled away from Firing Line in deep stretch, but will be afforded no such luxuries Saturday from what is nothing short of a very treacherous draw.…
The Preakness is Maryland’s race: it’s “Maryland, My Maryland” and black-eyed Susans and blue crabs. It’s so important to the state that when financial difficulties threatened racing in Maryland,the governor stepped in to make sure that the Preakness would stay in Baltimore. But 125 years ago, when financial woes imperiled the racing industry in Maryland,…
Now is usually when they start. The comments about going to the Preakness, the inevitable warnings about the “bad” neighborhood, the perpetuation of the image of Baltimore as a lawless, terrifying abyss of crime. This year those comments started a little earlier, the warnings a little more urgent, given the unrest in Baltimore following the…
Brooklyn Backstretch 