A Kentucky Derby Fan's Guide To Baltimore And The Preakness
By, William F. Reed
May 14, 2002

"If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl." -- H.L. Mencken, 1921

BALTIMORE, Md. (May 14, 2002) - The Triple Crown circus has pulled up stakes in Louisville and pitched its tents at homely old Pimlico race course, where the Preakness Stakes, the crown's middle jewel, will be held Saturday afternoon for the 127th time. The race has handicappers puzzled. As the revered Mencken once wrote, "The public demands certainties, and there ARE no certainties."

The track is located just north of Baltimore, a working-class city that's long been known for its newspapers, sports, crabcakes, National Premium beer, and neighborhood bars. Baltimorians of a cynical persuasion loved Mencken, who used his newspaper columns to tweak what he called "the booboise," a group that included the pompous, the vain, and the self-righteous.

One of his favorite targets was Puritanism, which today is the divine province of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and their ilk. He defined Puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy," and also wrote that "the great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable."

So Mencken, who died the year that Fabius won the Preakness (1956) would have felt perfectly at home in Saturday's roiling, beer-guzzling, wager-addicted crowd of more than 100,000 at "Old Hilltop," a track that's had more paint jobs than Phyllis Diller has had cosmetic surgery.

The list of Baltimore cultural icons includes Babe Ruth, Johnny Unitas, Brooks Robinson, Cal Ripken, and Eddie Arcaro. There's also Blaze Starr, which, come to think of it, would be a good name for a race horse. For years, she was the main attraction on "The Block," a bawdy collection of gin joints and flesh parlors located within convenient walking distance of the downtown hotels.

If you've never been to the Preakness, or are going this year for the first time, here are 10 things you should know before you crack your first crab at Captain Harvey's or one of the other wonderful seafood restaurants for which Baltimore is famous:

1. The Kentucky Derby is named after the Epsom Derby in England, and the Belmont Stakes is named after August Belmont II, a pillar of the New York racing establishment. But the Preakness is named for a 3-year-old colt who overcame his ugly-duckling appearance to win the Dinner Party Stakes at Pimlico's inaugural meeting in 1870.

2. Pimlico's answer to the Derby's signature twin spires is an infield replica of the cupola and weather vane that crowned Pimlico's old Victorian clubhouse, which burned to the ground in 1966. As soon as the Preakness is declared official, a painter climbs a ladder and splashes the winning owner's colors on the weather vane, where they remain until the next year's Preakness.

3. While the Derby's gold winner's trophy is the most coveted in the sport, the Woodlawn Vase that goes to the Preakness winner is the most valuable trophy in American sports. Assessed for $1 million in 1983, the vase is 34 inches tall, and weighs 29 pounds, 12 ounces. Each year the winning owner gets a smaller silver replica to keep.

4. The Preakness is run at the rare distance of a mile and 3/16ths, making it a sixteenth shorter than the Derby and 5/16ths shorter than the Belmont Stakes. Prior to 1925, it was run at six different distances ranging from a mile to a mile and a half.

5. Pimlico's answer to the Derby's mint julep is a ghastly drink known as a "Black-Eyed Susan." It's supposedly named for the flowers that are thrown across the Preakness winner's neck. Nobody seems to care that those flowers actually are daisies with black shoe polish at the center.

6. Baltimore people tend to be frank and direct, so it's not surprising that the best restaurant is simply named The Prime Rib. After Spectacular Bid's win in the 1979 Preakness, owners Harry, Teresa, and Tom Meyerhoff rented the entire restaurant and threw a wonderful party for the media. It was one of those rare times that one could eat lobster thermidor to the background music of oldies rock-n-roll.

7. Both Churchill and Pimlico are mile tracks. Both have long stretches - 1,234 1/2 feet at Churchill and 1,152 feet at Pimlico. But the "Myth That Won't Die" is that Pimlico has tighter turns than Churchill. In fact, the late John "Trader" Clark did a study in which he found that "the two turns at Pimlico are less sharp than those at Churchill by 68 feet."

8. The Preakness infield crowd might get even crazier than their Derby counterparts. At the 1999 Preakness, for example, a drunken fool wearing a tank top and shorts was boosted over the infield's chain-link fence so he could run out onto the track and stand in the way of Artax, who pounding toward the finish line in a stakes race on the undercard. Jockey Jorge Chavez swerved to keep from hitting the fool, who took a swing at Artax as he passed and hit Chavez on a boot.

9. Beginning with Sir Barton in 1919, a total of 28 Derby winners also have won the Preakness. Of those, 11 went on to win the Belmont and win the Triple Crown - Sir Barton, Gallant Fox in 1930, Omaha in '35, War Admiral in '37, Whirlaway in '41, Count Fleet in '43, Assault in '46, Citation in '48, Secretariat in '73, Seattle Slew in '77, and Affirmed in '78.

10. Pat Day, the all-time riding king at Churchill, has enjoyed better luck in the Preakness, where he has five wins in 15 starts, than the Derby, where he's 1-for-20. On Saturday, he'll ride Booklet for trainer John Ward and owner John Oxley. A victory would tie him with Eddie Arcaro for the all-time Preakness record.

If you're going to watch the Preakness either at home or at a track that offers simulcast betting, you might want to know that no female jockey or trainer has ever won the Preakness, that 86 of the 127 Preakness winners were bred in Kentucky, that the Preakness track has been fast every year since 1972, that the last Preakness winner to go wire-to-wire was Louis Quatorze in 1996, and that 64-of-127 favorites have won the Woodlawn vase.

Although trainer Bob Baffert seems supremely confident that War Emblem can reprise his victory in the Derby, it says here the Preakness will be won by Harlan's Holiday in a photo finish over Medaglia d'Oro. Proud Citizen will be third and War Emblem fourth.

But it's best to remember this line from Mencken: "The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom."

Native Kentuckian William F. "Billy" Reed has been a sports writer in various capacities for 42 years and has missed covering the Kentucky Derby a mere two times since 1966. He has been a high-profile sports writer in Kentucky for the Commonwealth's two largest daily newspapers, the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader and was a national columnist for Sports Illustrated, covering among other sports, Thoroughbred horse racing and college basketball. Reed currently pens a column for the Louisville Sports Report , contrbiutes features to the Keeneland program and will be, among varied other assignments, filing Kentucky Derby installments on www.kentuckyderby.com.

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