Preakness Stakes Posts Record Attendance Of 121,263

Record Crowd Attends Saturday’s Preakness Stakes At Pimlico

A record crowd of 121,263 attended The Preakness at Pimlico on Saturday, where Curlin beat Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense by a head (Baltimore SUN, 5/20).

GOOD DAY’S WORK: In Baltimore, John Eisenberg wrote the Maryland Jockey Club (MJC) “might struggle the rest of the year, but it excels” with the Preakness. The race had “never drawn as many as 100,000 fans until 1999, but it has since attracted six-figure crowds in seven of the past eight years.” MJC President & COO Lou Raffetto said, “We’re close to capacity. It’s almost to the point where, if we added more fans on Preakness Day, it would be ‘Where are we going to put them?’” Eisenberg noted the amount of money bet — “another barometer of the race’s health –- is also soaring.” Trainer D. Wayne Lukas said, “The only way I see the Preakness leaving Baltimore is if they closed Pimlico, and I just don’t see that happening.” NTRA Exec VP Keith Chamblin said, “We’re seeing a trend at racetracks across the country where there’s an emphasis on the premier events” (Baltimore SUN, 5/20). NBC’s Tom Hammond said the infield at Pimlico Downs is “pretty rowdy” and it “seems to put its Churchill Downs counterpart to shame” (NBC, 5/19).

BELMONT: In N.Y., Joe Drape reports Street Sense trainer Carl Nafzger “uttered the names of Affirmed and Alydar after the Preakness, hinting that this may be the beginning of an epic rivalry” with Curlin. But it is “more likely” the horses will meet in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga in August than in the Belmont Stakes on June 9. Nafzger said of running in the Belmont, “I don’t think we probably will.” Drape writes Hard Spun, who finished third at the Preakness is the “only one of the trio of accomplished colts who is definitely pointing to the Belmont Stakes” (N.Y. TIMES, 5/21). In L.A., Bill Dwyre writes Lukas has been “pushing for a commissioner of racing for years, somebody paid for by the industry as a whole and given major power in it.” Such a commissioner could have put out a statement following the Preakness saying that the trainers of Street Sense, Curlin and Hard Spun had “agreed to do everything possible to get their horses to the Belmont so the rivalry could have another viewing.” Instead, each was “predictably and understandably noncommittal” (L.A. TIMES, 5/21). Author John Feinstein said, “When Curlin put that nose past Street Sense, ABC’s ratings for the Belmont just plummeted” (“The Sports Reporters,” ESPN, 5/20).