So here it is. The last Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course, the Pimlico Race Course everybody knows anyway.

You going to miss the old place? Sure you are. It's OK to admit it. For all its grit, grime, dirt, dilapidation, leaky pipes, oddball staircases to nowhere, secret areas of air-conditioning greatness (IYKYK), fishbowl paddock, uphill/downhill grandstand, folding chairs, ceiling tiles (well some) and infield legends, Baltimore's racetrack maintains a special place in the city, the state and racing.

Also the 150th Preakness, this year's event will make people think about all that happened on the 70-acre property surrounded by city streets in the Park Heights neighborhood. When Pimlico opened in 1870, Baltimore was a far different place. Nearby Druid Hill Park played a role as an assembly point for early patrons who arrived by horse-drawn carriages. A railroad spur, built especially for the purpose, helped fans access the track. There was no Jones Falls Expressway, no LifeBridge Health campus, no rushing to make the lights on Northern Parkway.

Pimlico gets its name from English settlers in Colonial days, only they spelled it Pemblicoe on a settlement charter from 1669. The racetrack wasn't even technically within city limits when constructed. That didn't come until the border expanded in 1918. Baltimore grew up around the track, hence the shoehorned nature of it all now.

Long discussed, reconstruction is destined to start this year. Laurel Park will host the 151st Preakness in 2026. The 152nd is supposed to be at a new Pimlico, as part of an investment backed by more than $400 million in bonds and centered around a new management structure, training center in Woodbine and all the other bits and pieces of a reborn Thoroughbred industry in the state.

While that remains to be experienced, there's no doubting the impact of Pimlico on the people, some deeply involved in Maryland racing and its signature event, others only marginally so. The Preakness and Pimlico matter, and all you have to do is listen.

A winner 50 years ago, McHargue still feels Preakness

It was on a redeye flight, somewhere between coasts, sometime between races, when it hit Darrel McHargue. Well, Jorge Velasquez in the seat across the aisle, hit McHargue.

"What are you going to do now?" the 28-year-old jockey asked.

"What do you mean?" the 20-year-old jockey asked back.

"Your career. Are you going to New York or are you going to California?"
"Well, I don't know if I'm ready for that..."

"Man, you just won the Preakness . . ."

The Panamanian future Hall of Famer stretched Preakness across a thousand syllables. The Oklahoman kid heard every one of them. McHargue took his advice and left the easy pickings of the Mid-Atlantic to stake his claim in California and eventually a spot in racing's Hall of Fame.

Upsetting the 1975 Preakness Stakes -- the 100th running -- on Master Derby started it all.

"It was a foundation block for my career," said McHargue.

In front of a then-record crowd of 75,216, Master Derby and McHargue stalked the pace in the Preakness, kicked off the turn and held off Kentucky Derby winner Foolish Pleasure to win by a length. Drifting out late, Master Derby and McHargue survived a claim of foul by Jacinto Vasquez on Foolish Pleasure. Bred and owned by Robert Lehmann's Golden Chance Stable and trained by William "Smiley" Adams, Master Derby paid $48.80 and catapulted a 2,553-win career for his jockey.

"It was a surprise that day because he had a clean trip in the Derby, but it just didn't seem like he got the trip, the distance, but when I talked to the trainer he said, 'Nah, I missed a little time with him.' I didn't know that, I said, 'All right. Great,' "

McHargue said in April. "Sure enough, he was forwardly placed, and he was the type of horse who would sit there and wait for you to tell him what to do and when you did, he gave it his all. He was a push-button horse. He didn't make mistakes. I might have made a mistake, but he didn't."

McHargue didn't make many mistakes.

Earlier on Preakness Day, a trainer walked up the jocks' room stairs at Pimlico with a set of silks in his hand. McHargue had seen photos of the trainer.

"Mr. Frankel, Darrel McHargue. Can I help you?"

"Yeah, can you see that the clerk of scales gets these colors?"
"Sure."

McHargue delivered Preakness pacesetter Native Guest's silks to the clerk of scales.

A few months later, Bobby Frankel called McHargue and asked him if he wanted to come to California. The jockey never left, winning an Eclipse Award in 1978, retiring in 1988, becoming a steward in 1990 and getting inducted to racing's Hall of Fame by the Historic Review Committee in 2020.

"You never know," McHargue said. "You never know."

As for the 50-year anniversary of winning the Preakness, planting that foundation block, McHargue doesn't need Velasquez to remind him of the enormity.

"It's hard to believe. I didn't think I'd make it this far. As a jockey, with the elements of danger, you're really fortunate to live a long life," said McHargue, 70. "Here we are 50 years later and I'm able to enjoy that memory that's put up on your mantel that nobody can touch. As time goes on, and you wear it, you see how big it was."

-- Sean Clancy

Twenty years on, Afleet Alex memory delivers for owner, trainer

Chuck Zacney knows he's biased. So does everyone else. But it doesn't matter, Afleet Alex's win in the 2005 Preakness may be the best performance in the race's history.

If you need a refresher, cue up YouTube. Try to bypass the low-def version. From post 12 in a 14-horse field, Afleet Alex navigates to the two path by the first turn and rates in 10th. He passes seven horses on the inside to reach third before the quarter pole when jockey Jeremy Rose angles out from behind High Limit and goes after leader Scrappy T. Responding to the left-handed stick of Ramon Dominguez, Scrappy T ducks out hard and crosses Afleet Alex's path. Third in a rough-trip Kentucky Derby-G1 two weeks earlier, Afleet Alex clips heels, stumbles and nearly sends Rose to the dirt. Angry, motivated, something, Afleet Alex gathers himself, goes back to the inside, changes to his right lead and rolls past Scrappy T to win by an easy 43⁄4 lengths.

In the horsemen's boxes up a level from the track, the Cash is King partnership owners -- Zacney, Joe Lerro, Joe Judge, Jennifer Reeves and Bob Brittingham -- and company went a little crazy.

"We were beside ourselves," Zacney said in April. "Everybody runs to the winner's circle and all the sudden there were a hundred people there. We got some order to it, all the excitement, the horse went in, and we had a blast. As we left the winner's circle, we went back to the stable area -- win or lose we did that -- and I finally got to see the replay and didn't realize how bad it was until then. How did they not go down? How did Jeremy stay on?"

Tim Ritchey had the same thoughts, then and now.

"The athleticism of him to flip that leg out -- do you realize how fast that leg had to move to catch himself?" the trainer said in April. "He put that left leg out and just pushed himself back up. At the same time Jeremy was coming off and when Alex came back up he kind of pushed Jeremy right back in the saddle. In super slow motion it's phenomenal to watch."

Ability, luck, fate, divine intervention . . . pick your reason, Afleet Alex and Rose created a one-of-a-kind performance.

They backed it up three weeks later in the Belmont Stakes-G1 to clinch an Eclipse Award as 3-year-old champion. The Florida-bred was somewhat a local. He sold (for $75,000) at Fasig-Tipton Midlantic's May 2-year-old sale, and trained with Ritchey at Delaware Park (winning his first two starts there as a 2-year-old). The Cash is King people were from Philadelphia. Rose was a Mid-Atlantic regular.

One more local layer came via the connection to the Pennsylvania charity Alex's Lemonade Stand, whose namesake and founder Alex Scott died at age 8 in August 2004. Zacney read an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, made a donation to help the group reach $1 million in donations, and didn't think much beyond that. Another article about what the foundation might do next spurred Zacney to reach out to Alex's mother Liz Scott about trying to connect the horse to the effort to fight childhood cancer.

"I called and told her I had a son named Alex and a horse named Alex," said Zacney. "She obviously had a daughter named Alex. Was there something we could do?"

Lemonade stands turned up at racetracks in 2004 and 2005, and the horse's connections visited children's hospitals with hats, pins, T-shirts and media attention. Helped along by a racehorse's success and determination, Alex's Lemonade Stand grew into a powerhouse and recently passed $300 million raised for childhood cancer research. What began as, literally, a front-lawn lemonade stand includes a full-time staff, a board of directors, an advisory council, major research grants and more. Afleet Alex is listed as a celebrity collaborator alongside former Major League Baseball player Alex Gordon, Indycar driver Graham Rahal, model Cindy Crawford, actor Peter Facinelli, celebrity chefs and others.

"You never know how things are going to play out, do you?" Zacney said. "There was never any intent to get as involved as we did or to see if we could make that much of an impact. Sometimes you take a chance, and things play out better than you could have ever hoped. That's the lesson."

That nearly upside-down Preakness was 20 years ago. After the Belmont win, Afleet Alex retired to a stud career at Gainesway Farm. He sired seven Grade 1 winners, led by Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner Texas Red, Afleet Express and Materiality, and champions in Canada, Korea and Puerto Rico. He was pensioned from stud duty in 2022.

Buoyed by Afleet Alex's success, Cash is King rolled on -- campaigning alone or in partnership the likes of Grade 1 winner Cathryn Sophia, champion Jaywalk, millionaire Morning Matcha, Grade 2 winner (and on-his-way stallion) Maximus Mischief and a slew of others.

"It's crazy how time flies," Zacney said. "I saw some highlights the other day from the Arkansas Derby [which Afleet Alex won in his start prior to the Kentucky Derby] and my son is on my shoulders. He's 26 now. Where did that time go?"

Like anyone with a connection to the Preakness, Zacney holds Pimlico Race Course in high regard. Like his horse, the place delivered 20 years ago.

"I've been back a couple of times since then, not with a Preakness horse but for the undercard races," he said. "Pimlico and the Preakness are near and dear to me and always will be."
-- Joe Clancy

Pearce, Pimlico go way back

Even stewards start somewhere. Maryland Jockey Club steward Ross Pearce will watch the 2025 Preakness from the rooftop room and adjudicate potential interference or other rules violations in the historic Grade 1 stakes. He'll also think about his introduction to the track.

"I went to work at Pimlico when I was 9 years old," he said in April. "I walked three horses every morning for my uncle and got paid 50 cents a day for walking my three. He gave me a check at the end of the week for $3.50."

Trainer Jose de Murguiondo helped ignite a lifelong interest in racing as his nephew went on to ride steeplechase races, train flat horses for Buckland Farm and other major clients, and find his current post as one of three stewards at Maryland Jockey Club races. Pearce has officiated the Preakness since 2016. Exaggerator's victory came one year after American Pharoah's Triple Crown, but Pearce checked that off his list when Justify prevailed in the foggy Preakness of 2018.

That year aside, Pimlico offers one of the best stewards' views in racing, even if the spot high atop the building will be one of the many pieces of the equation to get much-needed upgrades.

"The stewards' stand angles out of the building a little bit so as stewards, we have a great view, much better than Laurel and a lot of tracks," Pearce said. "It leaks like hell if it rains, but it's a fun place to be. I'll miss that old stewards' stand."

It would be easy to assume that -- as a former hotwalker, exercise rider (at age 12) and trainer and current racing official -- Pearce might have seen just about every corner of the plant. Then again . . . he's "never been in the infield in my life." Once a rowdy free-for-all of parties, concerts, lacrosse games and even portable-toilet-rooftop footraces, the infield has evolved to include the high-end Turfside Terrace and a semi-permanent VIP tent featuring NFL stars and household names. Pearce missed it all.

He didn't miss walking to the Rexall Drug Store beyond the 6-furlong chute to buy the Daily Racing Form and Morning Telegraph, or breakfast at the Toddle House in Park Heights or bacon sandwiches and hot chocolates in the old track kitchen. As a local jump jockey, he'd pull the final three or four pounds in the Pimlico hot box before riding at Radnor or Fair Hill, thanks to clerk of scales Tommy Lee.

"It's been home to me," Pearce said. "I miss all of that, of course. At the same time, a new facility is something to look forward to."

-- Joe Clancy

Job of a lifetime for Hale

Georganne Hale stood on the turf course as black clouds rolled in and the storm of Preakness 2015 brewed up its Baltimore latte. Rain would soon lash down in sheets, wind would test pretty much everything tied down (or not tied down), lightning would go after the rest, the track's dirt would turn to brown water and American Pharoah would put on a show.

Before all that, Hale had one thought.

"Whoa, do I really want this radio next to me?"

She didn't, but she also didn't have a choice in her role as a Maryland Jockey Club executive. On Preakness Day, that could mean anything and in 2015 she was organizing the chaos of horses and people in the turf-course saddling area when the storm hit.

"I'd never seen rain that hard," said Hale, whose title is senior vice president now. "It was unbelievable."

She won't soon forget that one, or 1999 when Lee Chang Ferrell ran out on the dirt track during the Maryland Breeders' Cup Handicap and tried to punch Artax in the face. Keeping fans off the track wasn't Hale's job, but her one thought was, "Where is security?" The punch missed the horse, the horse missed the guy, Yes It's True won, Artax finished fifth, wagers on him were refunded, security got their man, the Preakness gained another legend and everyone lived happily ever after.

Mostly.

Hale was in her office when the building lost power during the 1998 Preakness. Somehow, her phone rang and it was Charlsie Cantey from ABC asking, "What is going on?" Hale didn't lie. "I have no idea," she said. A transformer fire three blocks away knocked out electricity to the clubhouse and part of the grandstand (the infield barely noticed) just before the fifth race. At about the same time, another fire started in an air conditioner in the jockeys' room. There were no injuries, just steamed people on a 96-degree day that set an attendance record of 91,122. "That was an angry crowd; no lights in that big, old building?" said Hale, who locked her office door. Power restored, Real Quiet defeated Victory Gallop in a repeat of their Kentucky Derby finish two weeks earlier.

Less dramatic Preaknesses, from a work standpoint, resonate with Hale.
"Rachel Alexandra was probably my favorite, what a cool filly," she said of the 2009 running. "The reaction to Seize the Grey winning last year for Wayne Lukas gave you chills up your spine."

Hale worked her first Preakness in 1984, as the assistant to horse identifier Mike Hopkins, who became the executive director of the Maryland Racing Commission. Other staffers at the track, then owned by the Cohen family, that day included Chick Lang, Coley Blind, E.T. McLean and Larry Abbundi.

Before that, Hale worked with horses in the mornings, for the likes of Katy Voss, Ann Merryman and Mikey Smithwick. Hale remembers the track buying up the houses between Northern Parkway and Rogers Avenue to make room for parking. She remembers all the barns -- Dickie Small parallel to the horse path, Richard Dutrow, Kenny Field, Voss and others perpendicular -- in what is the parking lot between the grandstand and Rogers Avenue.

In barns, executive suites and everything in between, big changes to Pimlico have been discussed for decades. They sound like they're finally coming this time, and Hale knows it. She's going to miss the place.

"We call her the old girl and those of us who love the old girl love the old girl," Hale said. "We love Pimlico and it's going to be a little upsetting when they come with the first bulldozer. I certainly will miss Pimlico, but it's kind of exciting when you're seeing plans for the new version."

-- Joe Clancy

Gathagan enjoys Preakness memories

Mike Gathagan remembers each and every one.

The first came as a senior at South Carroll High. His lacrosse team had just lost the state semifinals the night before. Gathagan and his buddies watched the most local Preakness winner of all, Deputed Testamony, shock the world in the Pimlico mud in 1983.

Four years later, working for WMAR-TV, Gathagan covered Alysheba and a year after that, Ronnie Lamarque, Risen Star's owner, sang on air during the 6 o'clock live show from the rooftop at Old Hilltop.

In 2001, Gathagan's first Preakness as communications director for the Maryland Jockey Club, he had an office a few feet from where Lamarque crooned his lines.

"I remember them all..." Gathagan said in April.

Derby favorite Point Given, trained by Bob Baffert, got revenge on the Derby winner Monarchos, trained by John Ward in 2001. "Point Given with Monarchos coming in," Gathagan said. "Mr. Ward was such a great guy to deal with."

A year later, Derby winner War Emblem staved off local longshot Magic Weisner.

My favorite. Dave Rodman's call of Magic closing on War Emblem. Nancy Alberts wandering around the infield looking to congratulate Bob Baffert."

In 2003, Barclay Tagg returned to his Maryland roots, bedding down Funny Cide in Mary Eppler's barn on the backside instead of the Derby winner's stall in the stakes barn.

"I called Barclay when Funny Cide shipped in and he said, 'How'd you know where I was going?' We had the press conference in the Pimlico press box, we took the elevator, it was working that day, and he said, 'I don't really want to be here very long. I'll give you a look.' I said, 'I'll stop it.' He talked for 20 minutes. He wasn't as bad as everyone made him out to be, he always picked up the phone."

And then the undefeated Smarty Jones, the equine Rocky Balboa, rolled into Pimlico in 2004.

"That was crazy. That one was by far the wildest Preakness. I credentialed over 1,700 media members that year. All of Philadelphia. Steven A. Smith was a late add and I put him in the auxiliary press box. Frank Carulli says to this day, that's his favorite moment in the 11½ years he worked with me. Again, we took care of the people who covered the industry."

A year later, Afleet Alex, was down but not out at the head of the stretch.
"What Alex and Jeremy Rose did that day, still one of the great athletic things I've ever seen from both man or beast."

And 2006, the one we'd all like to forget.

"What happened with Barbaro, the single worst day . . ."

A year later, Curlin denied Derby winner Street Sense with Hard Spun and Mid-Atlantic stalwart Mario Pino third.

"I'm just moving, I pulled out a box and I still have a photo of the photo finish of that race. To think about it, that was probably the best race. And to get Mario a lot of national attention, that was a great thing, that was rewarding. To have Mario ride in the biggest race of our state . . ."

Local hero Kent Desormeaux returned the next year with undefeated Derby winner Big Brown.

"That was fun. Kent was really good to deal with, we brought him up to the press box on Black-Eyed Susan Day and had an impromptu presser with him."
Rachel Alexandra joined the fray the following year.

"Craziness in '09. The whole drama about someone was going to put some horse in so Rachel couldn't get in, that was some drama early in the week. That was the first year Tom Chuckas tried to corral the infield fest. That was a weird week with no one showing up in the infield. Wayne Lukas stopped by my office and said it was tragic. I said, 'I disagree Mr. Lukas, someone was going to die in that infield.' That was a brave move and the best move."

Lookin At Lucky and Shackleford, good horses and good races, but they run together.

Then 2012 Derby winner I'll Have Another and trainer Doug O'Neill roared into town.

"In dealing with the buildup, that was my favorite Preakness. Doug came in the day after the Derby, which was unheard of, we were able to get them to do a lot of things. Throw out the first pitch at the Orioles' game, went up to minicamp of the Ravens. His crew embraced Baltimore. That was fun."

In 2013, Lukas rejuvenated with Will Take Charge and Oxbow.

"I don't know when I started staying in a hotel Preakness Week, I was working until 2 in the morning and getting back in at 5 in the morning, just harassing my house, so I'm staying at Cross Keys. It's Preakness morning and Lukas and I are in the elevator, and he tells me he really thinks Will Take Charge has a big race in him. Then he wins it with Oxbow. 'OK, even these guys might not know who's ready to fire on that particular day.' "

And the last one, California upstart California Chrome keeping the dream alive in 2014.

"It was another really, really good one. That team was good to deal with and it was fun to see that horse win for fun and have a chance at the Triple Crown."

And then Gathagan left, forced out by corporate.

"There were, what, six or seven opportunities at a Triple Crown? Then I leave, and bam, there's the first one," Gathagan said. "It all comes back to the people. Fourteen Derby winners came to Baltimore. It was a highlight of my career to be a small part of one of America's great sporting events. I wish I was still there."

Gathagan will be back this year as a guest of Karin and Joe De Francis.
"As they said, this will be Preakness 150 and the last one at the Pimlico that we knew. Where we worked. When you made that turn off Northern Parkway onto Winner Avenue and then made the left into the parking lot . . . almost every great horse who ran in North America ran at Pimlico. I had the best office in sports, the sixteenth pole at Pimlico Race Course. I loved Pimlico."

-- Sean Clancy