The Pimlico meet will start later and end later this year than in 2015 and will have nine fewer racing days. The stakes schedule is different too but will offer the same 15 stakes as last year on its two main cards, Preakness Day and Black-Eyed Susan Day.
In 2015, Pimlico raced 37 days from April 2 to Belmont Stakes Day, June 6. This year, a 28-day meet will start May 12, the Thursday after the Kentucky Derby, and run through June 26.
Bob Baffert won the trainers’ participation bonus at Pimlico last weekend, according to stakes coordinator Coley Blind.
To be eligible for the bonus, a trainer had to start at least five horses in designated races last Friday and Saturday. The order of finish was determined by a points system for finishing first (10 points), second (7), third (5), fourth (3), and for starting a horse (1 point).
The Preakness monsoon cleared out the Pimlico infield, spread out the field by 48 lengths from front to back, and played mind games with figure makers, including those of us at Beyer Central.
“Making figures is sometimes a science and sometimes an art,” Andrew Beyer said. “This time, it was intelligent guesswork at best.”
The Beyer figures are determined by comparing times from all the races on a card.
“Everything that happened before the Preakness was irrelevant,” Beyer said.
While betting on Saturday’s Preakness Stakes did not keep pace with record figures for this year’s Kentucky Derby, the significant decline in wagering may have been more a function of the circumstances surrounding the race then on any drop-off in attention to racing’s biggest events.
Pimlico decided not to delay the start of Saturday’s rain-deluged Preakness Stakes because the worst of the storm that hit shortly before the race had already passed the track, according to Sal Sinatra, the track’s general manager.
The gates for the Preakness opened at 6:21, three minutes past the scheduled post time. By that time, rain had been falling at the track for approximately 15 minutes, but the heaviest portion of the storm had migrated to the east, Sinatra said, with no danger remaining for horses and jockeys.
BALTIMORE – American Pharoah is off to New York to try for the Triple Crown – but first, a return to Louisville.
As he prepares for the Belmont Stakes on June 6, American Pharoah, who won the Preakness Stakes here at Pimlico on Saturday, will do the bulk of his training at Churchill Downs, where he won the Kentucky Derby on May 2 and has been based since shortly after his win in the Arkansas Derby on April 11. He arrived here the Wednesday prior to the Preakness and will have the same itinerary heading into the Belmont, trainer Bob Baffert said Sunday morning at Pimlico.
BALTIMORE — Under the dark skies over Pimlico, American Pharoah shone brightly in the Preakness. He not only displayed his usual high speed, but he was the only one of the key contenders who handled with aplomb the wind, the driving rain, the mu,d and even a lightning flash right at post time.
