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Rachel's Day At the Preakness Before Smaller, Subdued Crowd

Calvin Borel is not just the best big race jockey working in America right now, he is also likely the best handicapper. Continuing the best May of his life, Calvin booted home the wondrous filly Rachel Alexandra in Saturday's Preakness, finishing a length ahead of the fast closing Kentucky Derby winner, Mine That Bird. Borel, who was aboard Bird in the Derby and Rachel in the Kentucky Oaks the day before, chose to ride Rachel Alexandra in the Preakness and became the first jockey ever to win the Derby and Preakness on two different horses when the Derby winner was also in the Preakness.

With story lines abounding, you would think that this year's Preakness would have drawn a large and boisterous crowd. You would have been wrong. Demonstrating incredibly poor timing, if nothing else, the management of Pimlico decided that this would be the year to institute a ban on bringing your own beer/alcohol into the track, thereby shutting down the Freakness, as the Preakness day long drunken, port-a-potty racing, wet t-shirt contesting participants had come to be known. Why pick the year when ownership of the track is in bankruptcy and the future of the track and the race is in jeopardy? The BYOB ban had the desired effect of cutting down on the infield carousing;; it also had the less desirable effect of significantly reducing attendance. After falling last year by about 7.5%, attendance this year was off around 30%. While all of the drop may not be attributable to the change in alcohol policy, the lion's share of it most certainly is.

The race itself was dramatic and everything that is good about horse racing. The scene at the track, however, with its relative sparse attendance demonstrated once again the substantial problems facing Maryland horse racing and Pimlico in particular.

Full post as published by Sports Biz on May 18, 2009 (boomark / email).