The Preakness

Dr. Giganto

I realize that this is techincally a sports-related thing, but what I'm going to write about has nothing to do with the horse race whatsoever. It's about what took place on the infield of the Pimlico Race Track on Saturday morning and afternoon.

For several years, I've been hearing about how the Preakness was one of the craziest events you can attend. This year, I finally decided to go. An old friend of mine from college lives in Baltimore, which is very close to Pimlico.

We paid $80 for the following deal: Unlimited Bloody Marys and Mimosas and a breakfast buffet from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., a bus ride to and from the racetrack, a six-pack of beer and a minicooler for the ride to the track, and a ticket to the infield ($50 face value).

I had my first mimosa at 7:30 a.m. Me and two friends brought two 30-packs of Bud Light and a bottle of Jack Daniels. Needless to say, I was absolutely smashed by noon.

The infield of the racetrack is like nothing I've ever seen before. First of all, most people don't even care about the races. It's just a gigantic party with tens of thousands of young people getting drunk off their asses. There are girls flashing their boobs every couple of minutes. People were throwing full beer cans as far as they possibly could, so you needed to constantly pay attention, or risk the chance of getting hit in the head with a flying beer can. People were jumping on top of a row of port-o-potties and trying to run from one side to the end. As they were doing this, people were pelting them with beer cans. I drank from an 8-person beer bong/funnel (An "octo-bong", so the speak). Everywhere you looked, there were ridiculously hot, scantily-clad women. Gorups of people are wore matching t-shirts or costumes. Three guys wore speedos, giant sunglasses, and fake giant afro wigs. My favorite t-shirt I saw said "Banging chicks at the Preakness...so easy a caveman could do it!"

It was sheer and utter pandemonium. Before I knew it, it was 6 p.m. and the main race was about to start. I took all the cash I had in my pocket and bet on the favorite to win. He lost by a nose in a photo finish. I didn't really care, I was too drunk and having too much fun.

I can't believe I've never gone before. I had so much fun, though, and I can't wait until next year...

Dr. Giganto

In case you guys want to see video of the "port-o-racing"

PORT-A-JOHN RACING AT THE PREAKNESS - With Leather

Blitzkrieg

Administrator

Haha. Sounds intense. You know.. I would have never expected something like this out of horse racing. All I ever see on tv is like those rich, prissy, snobby ass people in weird hats..

Dr. Giganto

you have to go to the Preakness next year. Trust me. you will love it...

Here's what MSNBC had to say about it:

Preakness infield a wild, bawdy scene

What horse race? Revelers revel in party atmosphere

Matthew Cavanaugh / EPA Revelers party in the infield prior to the 132nd running of the Preakness Stakes. View related photos

Slide show Preakness pandemonium Check out the action - and fun - at the second leg of the Triple Crown.

132nd Preakness Stakes

Curlin tops Street Sense at Preakness | Results Brunker: Lost opportunity for losing jockeys Street Sense loss extends Triple Crown drought Notebook: Hard Spun comes up short again Barbaro’s trainer returns, wins race | Images Another horse breaks down in early race Preakness infield wild, bawdy scene | Images 25 years later, a star jockey's sad fall Discuss: Sound off on horse racing

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Updated: 5:00 p.m. ET May 19, 2007


BALTIMORE - There they were: three out-of-shape guys in their 30s at a busy intersection in the middle of the track wearing Speedo bathing suits, black Afro wigs and sunglasses.
For some reason, dozens of women felt compelled to pose for pictures with them.
“They look fabulous,” 20-year-old Caroline Hartman said. “This is so cool. They’re so cute!”
Story continues below ↓

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A year earlier, the infield revelry was blunted by the breakdown of Barbaro. On this day, there was no indication that memories of that horrific moment were going to deter the tens of thousands in attendance from drinking beer, flirting and, on occasion, betting on a race.
“It brings out the fun in everybody,” said one of the guys in the scantily clad trio. “It’s all about fun today. If you can’t have fun, why be here?”
How about to celebrate a pending marriage?
“This is my bachelor party,” said Stuart Sears, 30, who was wearing an ill-fitting jockey uniform complete with a cap and goggles. The outfit was a gift from his buddy, who bought it online for $50.
“So far it’s been very good at repelling women,” Sears said.
Admission to the infield was $55 or $60, depending on when and where the ticket was purchased. The sky was blue, the temperature in the mid-70s and the beer was everywhere, courtesy of Pimlico’s liberal BYOB policy.
To aid the transport of beer from car to track, boys patrolled the neighborhood with, uh, borrowed shopping carts. There was no shortage of takers for their service.
By 10:30, 20-year-old Katie Jowers had already knocked off three beers. The University of Maryland junior had never before been to the Preakness, and didn’t seem disappointed about having virtually no chance of seeing an actual horse.
“Everybody here last year was calling me, telling me how fun it was, so I had to see for myself,” she said.
Her group set up at 9 a.m., shortly after the gates opened. They had no way of knowing the speakers attached to the nearby betting windows would be blaring at a nearly intolerable volume.
The lines at the betting windows were far shorter than those at the portable toilets. But not everyone spent the day drinking beer.

Slide show: Week in Sports Pictures Week in Sports Pictures Balloon for A-Rod, ‘Sheed soars to score, and more

Jason Harris came from Cincinnati with his wife. Before the second race, he was busily marking up a newspaper and watching the large TV screen that flashed the latest odds.
“I’m 1-for-1 so far. Won the trifecta for $101,” he said.
The couple arrived in Baltimore on Friday night and planned to leave Sunday. It was their fifth Preakness; Harris estimated the cost of the trip at $1,000, but he hoped to make some of it back with winning tickets.
He went to the Kentucky Derby, too, and said he would attend the Belmont if Street Sense still had a shot at the Triple Crown.
Harris and his wife were planted in a corner, far from the rapidly swelling infield crowd and about 100 yards from those three guys in their skimpy bathing suits. A teenage girl sipping strawberry daiquiris from a pitcher walked by the three amigos and dropped her mouth.
“I’m not too impressed,” she said, “but I’m still going to take their picture.”

Blitzkrieg

Administrator

Oh man.. hahahaha.. that looks pretty f'n funny. Wow.. Not really that expensive either. It definitely sounds like a plan.

Inogenius

I have absolutely no clue what it is, but I'm there next year.

Dakstang

WC's Resident Redneck

Where is this at again? Baltimore?

Dr. Giganto

just outside of baltimore...Pimlico, MD

Dr. Giganto

I stumbled upon another awesome Preakness article...enjoy:

You Shoulda Been There: Heart of Preakness
by Kaelan Hollon - 05/24/2005


Four times now, when someone has asked me about last weekend's attendance in the Preakness Infield, I fall to the floor choking on my own tongue, all spasmodic twitching and itchy hives, and scream out between a torrent of curse words, "Sweet Baby Jesus make it STOOOOOPPPPP!!! IT BURNS! OH GAWD IT BURRRNNNNSSS!"

This does not go over well at work.

You see, at least once in their misspent youth, a person should attend the sort of party that makes you question not only your sanity, but moreover whether humanity itself is a fundamentally pointless venture. The sort of get together that allows a man to look a police officer in the eye while he pools urine into the hot green grass at Pimlico Race Course, then retch, puke, and fall face front into his own excrement, raising up one greasy eye long enough to ask the cop whether he'd mind grabbing him another beer. It is a good exorcism of the soul when midgets are playing Kiss cover songs at eight thirty in the morning. Builds character.

The Baltimore Sun reported Sunday morning that this was one of the most reserved Preakness infield's in recent memory. Upon reading this, I looked around our hotel room the morning after the race and noted the dusty lines on the dresser, the inexplicable strap-on laying on the floor between passed out partygoers, and the gash on my feet that poured blood when I tried to clean it. I attempted to stretch my hand out and grab a warm beer, noting a sprain where I had tackled a man the afternoon prior. Obviously, the Sun's reporter wasn't running with Captain and Johnny Thunderpants.

I've had a rough adjustment moving from the backwoods of Eastern Kentucky into a DC life of concrete jungles and white-collar blues, and so was ecstatic when Captain and Johnny agreed to take me under their wing and introduce me to the wildest party on the Eastern Seaboard. Seven a.m. and we're booming down the highway with Motley Crue and a pint of Beam, the leopard print steering wheel cover verily growling in anticipation. Captain is in a red and blue lame jockey uniform, and Johnny is wearing his old professional wrestling uniform, which includes leather pants, a sleeveless Harley shirt, and stocking with a cowboy hat. We are still respectively recovering from the night before, where the last I remember was pouring a beer on my head at a downtown DC bar, and Captain left a gorgeous blond naked in bed upon our hasty exit of the District.
We pull into Pimlico, and a one-eyed veteran in full troop regalia stops our taxi to swing round a giant linen hamper and pick up our coolers. He tips the traffic cop a fiver to let us cross a major highway in peace, and suddenly it is early morning in a sea of people, I am drunk in a crowd of near and perfect strangers, and the prospect of 10 more hours of this seems fraught with potential incarceration.

But this is a lawless scene -- a beer crowd -- and the cops give me cat-eyed grins when my contraband bottle of vodka falls out of the box holding a kiddie pool. Someone attempted to confiscate my whiskey early on (no glass containers allowed), but with some cajoling and a wicked smile, the door staff allows me to pour it into a dirty cooler, where I tip up the corner and sip from that, ignoring the flecks of Nasty and concentrating on the buzz.

By 10:30 a.m. we have set up camp and made fast friends with a crew of Jersey college students, and beer pong starts while I meet another Kentucky girl, a foul-mouthed freshman in college who lets the Beam dribble off her chin while we memorialize the Bluegrass state in all its glory. I grew up around horse tracks, chicken fights, barn parties, moonshiners and hill croppers my entire life, but lord, lord, lord Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.

Preakness is the bastard stepchild of the Triple Crown because it puts on little airs, which is unusual in a horse crowd. Furthermore, very little about the crowd's mentality has anything to do with horses. This is obviously a social event, and heavily local. Very few people who have grown up in the area leave, and college girls greet each other familiarly with bobble-headed screeches, frat boys bumping chests as they scream "TOWSON" across the Infield. Where the Derby has, in recent years, cracked down on the cacophony of lewd behavior in favor of a moderate-to-intense tailgating atmosphere, Preakness rolls with the punches, and two days later, I am still a gawdam twitching mess to show for it.

Horses, as the gambling crowd is already well-aware of, make us crazy. The whole scene is designed to sink gold-plated claws into a collective conscious and pig gut our 100,000 strong in attendance. And the animals stream by like monstrous angels, a thousand pounds of sweat and muscle that carry our paychecked pride on their backs. Our dreams are in the pock