The Preakness Stakes: An Overview and Some History of One Amazing Race

The Preakness Stakes is a Grade I race for 3 year old horses that is held on the 3rd Saturday in May at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the second jewel in the "Triple Crown" (The Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes); a series of races for 3 year old horses that is run over the course of May and June each year.

The Preakness was first run two years before the Derby, in 1873, but because it was not continuously run, the Derby is considered the oldest continuously run sporting event here in the United States. The race is named after a horse, Preakness, who won the Dinner Party Stakes on the day that Pimlico first opened in 1870. The first Preakness was won by a horse named "Survivor."

The race has been run at several different lengths, before finally settling on the mile and 3/16ths that is its current distance. It is the shortest of the three races that make up the Triple Crown, and nearly always attracts the winner of the Derby along with a few new entrants. This year, for example, there will be at least three horses from the Derby (including the winner, Street Sense), and a group of horses that either did not make it into the Derby because of earnings, or passed the Derby for other reasons.

The winner of the Preakness will be rewarded with a blanket of Maryland's state flower, the Black Eyed Susan (though the blanket used to be composed of daisies with their centers painted black, for mid-May was too early for the Susans to be blooming), and the most valuable trophy in sports- the Woodlawn Vase. The winner does not get the actual trophy, of course, merely a miniature replica. The original trophy is kept at the Baltimore Museum of Art. The final winner's boon is that as soon as the winner is made official, the weathervane on the old Clubhouse Cupola is painted with the winner's silks, which then remain that color until the following year's race is run.

The Preakness is often the most exciting of the three Triple Crown races, since it is the shortest, and requires the horses to prove their bravery and their heart rather than their stamina. Indeed, the single most amazing Triple Crown race I have ever seen was not the historical Derby or the "Test of Champions" the Belmont- it was the middle child- the Preakness.

In 1989, an experienced trainer by the name of Charlie Whittingham brought a mean black colt to the Derby and startled everyone by beating the two-year-old champion Easy Goer to begin his Triple Crown quest. Sunday Silence surprised everyone with his Derby win, and was dismissed in the Preakness as a "fluke." The horseplayers thought he'd just caught Easy Goer on an off day, and they were certain that Easy Goer would put this upstart in his place on Preakness Day.

Easy Goer was sent off as the favorite, and Sunday Silence was again dismissed. The race began like any other- but then, at the top of the stretch, the two colts hooked up for a stretch duel that lives on as one of the best races of all time. Head-to-head, they raced down the stretch, each staring the other in the eye, neither giving an inch. At one point, Easy Goer got his nose in front, and it looked as if Sunday Silence was going to be beaten, but the black colt reached down and fought back, somehow finding another bit of energy to allow him to regain his position- and then, at the wire, Sunday Silence somehow managed to put his head in front, and win.

It was awe-inspiring. I spent the entire race cheering Sunday Silence on, but at the end, I couldn't speak for amazement at the courage, the sheer guts displayed by that black colt. When his number flashed on top, and he'd won 2 steps of the Triple Crown, I was positive nothing and no one could beat him, that he'd BE the next Triple Crown winner.

But it was not to be. Easy Goer swept past him in the Belmont, shattering the dream of a Triple Crown with one huge move.

That race, though- the 1989 Preakness- is still the best race ever. And Sunday Silence and Easy Goer will be forever linked because of it.