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Preakness Stakes Is a Most Historic Triple Crown Jewel
By GREG MELIKOV
Ulysses S. Grant was president, the U.S. population was 38,558,371 and there were 37 states when Pimlico Race Course opened in Baltimore.
In 1868, Maryland Gov. Oden Bowie and his friends, prominent racing figures, agreed at a dinner party in Saratoga to commemorate the evening with a race in two years for yearlings at the time.
Both Saratoga, the first U.S. track that debuted four years earlier, and the American Jockey Club bid for the event. But Bowie pledged to build a model track in Maryland if the race was staged there.
Two years later, the Dinner Party Stakes was launched for 3-year-old colts and fillies at two miles. It’s now known as the Dixie Handicap. In 1873, Pimlico introduced a new race for 3-year-olds named for the inaugural Dinner Stakes winner: Preakness.
On a warm, muggy May 27, seven horses raced 1 ½ miles before a crowd of 12,000. The winner of the first Preakness Stakes was Survivor, who stormed home by 10 lengths, the largest margin of victory for 13 decades until Smarty Jones cruised to an 11 ½-length victory.
The race, at 12 furlongs until 1890 except for 1 ¼ miles in 1889, has been run at seven different distances from a mile to 1 1/8 miles until 1924. The next year, the current 1 3/16 miles was inaugurated.
In ’06, a record 118,402 turned out for the Preakness – the largest crowd to witness a sporting event in Maryland.
The morning after Street Sense scored by 2 ¼ lengths in the 133rd Kentucky Derby, winning trainer Carl Nafzger immediately informed the Maryland Jockey Club that the son of Street Cry will race in the $1 million Preakness on May 19.
There could be as many as a dozen starters in the 131st Preakness. Up to five also-rans at Churchill Downs could challenge Street Sense, including Hard Spun, the runner-up that led the first eight furlongs of the 1 ¼ miles, and Curlin, who rallied from eighth a quarter-mile out to finish third.
Only two that skipped America’s Race in the past 16 years won at Pimlico: Bernardini last year and Red Bullet in ’00. Ironically, during that time span, there were fewer than 10 starters both years: Nine in ’06 and seven in ’00.
Of six horses that bypassed Louisville for the expected trip to Baltimore, three are most likely to race: Santa Anita runner-up King of the Roxy, trained by Todd Pletcher who went 0 for 5 at Churchill Downs; Chelokee, third in the Florida Derby; and Flying First Class, victorious in the Derby Trial.
During the early ’80s, three horses passing on the first jewel of the Triple Crown wore the Black-Eyed Susans: Codex, ’80; Aloma’s Ruler, ’82; and Deputed Testimony, ’83.
Ulysses S. Grant was president, the U.S. population was 38,558,371 and there were 37 states when 
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