Preakness Stakes

We decided to head up to Baltimore, MD for the 136th running of the Preakness. Neither of us are horse racing fans, but it is one of those things we thought we should attend. This may come as a surprise to many readers, but we headed to Baltimore with no plan of attack. As we approached the city, we became aware of our gross miscalculation of time, strategy, and interest in attending the event. We sucked it up and made our way through one of Baltimore's more questionable neighborhoods. Unfortunately, we were almost out of gas and had to stop. On the brighter side, the gas station was located across the street from "HipHop Fish and Chicken".

If you ever watched the show "The Wire," Pimilico race course appears to be in the general area that was primarily featured.  After finding a place to park, we made our way into the track.  It was quite a spectrum of people attending this event. There were folks dressed to kill with fancy hats and seersucker suits along with people with no shirt or shoes on. Ben sported his light blue tuxedo t-shirt in a quest to be classy but let people know he is ready to party. To our surprise, he was not the only one in such a shirt.  Would you believe we saw two other people in light blue tuxedo t-shirts? Honestly, we would not believe it if we had not seen it with our own eyes.

 

Our general observation of horse racing is a whole lot of drinking interrupted by a few min of racing. It seemed like everyone around us was stumbling drunk off the official drink of the Preakness which is known as the "black-eyed Susan", whatever that is.

 After Ben placed our bets,we sipped on Diet Pepsi and enjoyed a crab cake sandwich while we waited for the Preakness Stakes race to begin.



"Hi, umm I'd like to throw this money away"







The Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom prior to the race



The minutes leading up to the race were electric. People were really excited, some of which had been there since the gates open at 8am. Horse racing is literally the worst sport to see in person, but the environment made it worthwhile. As the horses turned for the homestretch, Animal Kingdom (Kentucky Derby Winner) made his charge. As the horses passed us the second time, just 1/8 mile from the finish, people were going nuts. Shackleford edged out Animal Kingdom and Astrology. Unfortunately for us, we bet on Astrology to win it all.  Apparently it was not in the stars for us to make money off this race.

Shackleford to the far right, Animal Kingdom in the middle and Astrology on the left

It had been a long day out in the sun and we were happy to get home and spend the evening with the dogs. Netflix has struck again, this time in the form of the show "Glee". We watched way too many episodes before calling it a night.