So, you're going to the Preakness, or watching the Preakness and you've got some questions. You're not alone. The biggest and most common question is pretty straightforward -- what will this year's Preakness look like?
Black-Eyed Susans -- the flowers, the drinks and the stakes? Yes.
Crab cakes? Of course.
The Woodlawn Vase? Do you really need to ask?
Painting the weathervane? Oh yes.
Morning gatherings at the stakes barn, the usual hospitality, "Maryland, My Maryland," 14-race Friday and Saturday cards and the Alibi Breakfast? Check, check, check, check and check.
Plenty will look and feel much the same for the 151st Preakness Stakes-G1, which takes the 28-mile drive south from its traditional home at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore to Laurel Park in Laurel. The move of the middle jewel of the Triple Crown comes while Pimlico undergoes a massive reconstruction amidst expected changes to the state's racing calendar. The Preakness at Laurel -- supposedly just for 2026 -- also gives the Triple Crown an even more odd feel this year as it joins the Belmont Stakes-G1 as another jewel being run at an abnormal location.
Saratoga Race Course will host its third Belmont June 6, with Belmont Park expected to reopen following a comprehensive construction project that started not long after the 2023 Belmont Stakes.
But back to the Preakness.
What about the infield party? Not possible, thanks to a large pond that covers nearly half the space inside the Laurel turf course.
How about a big crowd? Maybe not quite the 140,000-plus that turned out in 2017 but closer to the 63,000 or so that showed up last year? Not a chance. With a significantly smaller facility and limited room for temporary hospitality areas, organizers will cap the crowd at 4,800.
OK, well, surely the 'Running of the Porta Potties?' Where have you been, that went away more than a decade ago.
Most importantly, how about the Kentucky Derby-G1 winner showing up? Well, you can only hope for that.
"Of course it will look different, but different doesn't mean bad," said Tiffani Steer, vice president of communications for 1/ST Racing, which maintained the rights to run the 2026 Preakness after turning over the Maryland racing assets to the reconstituted and non-profit Maryland Jockey Club in 2025. "It's exciting. It's different, but I think exciting for true racing fans who want to be part of history."
Those fans interested in the relocated Preakness gobbled up the tickets when they went on sale in late February.
Steer said 98 percent of the tickets were sold by early April. The remaining inventory included spots in the Finish Line Suites, Homestretch Suites and Turfside Terrace. All packages were sold as two-day tickets, to Friday's Black-Eyed Susan-Pimlico Special Day card and Saturday's Preakness Day.
"We wanted to give a value add knowing that we weren't able to accommodate as many guests," Steer said of selling two-day ticket packages. "But there's a value add knowing that if I purchase my ticket for Preakness Day, I have that same ticket on Black-Eyed Susan Day. We are expecting a full turnout for both days regardless of the venue capacity. There's nothing like a full crowd and we're excited to see that."
Laurel Park, formerly known as Laurel Race Course, opened in 1911 and sits on 229 acres. The track features more than 40,000 square feet of "flexible non-traditional event spaces" inside and outside trackside areas. Pimlico, razed last summer and fall, sits on 119 acres but featured seating capacity in the grandstand and clubhouse of nearly 15,000, with an additional capacity for 94,000 or more including general admission, infield and standing room only.
Ryan Riboldi, a resident of Newfoundland, Pa., not far from Pocono Downs, started buying tickets to the Preakness in 2001 and attended every year -- aside from the spectator-free October event during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 -- through 2025.
"My first seats were in the condemned area, that bleacher area at the top of the stretch at the end of the grandstand," Riboldi said. "I remember sitting in there then and hoping nothing fell down on us."
Riboldi and his partner Karen Biscardi made a weekend out of the Preakness, making the almost four-hour trip to Baltimore and taking in the races Friday and Saturday. He watched from all over the grandstand and clubhouse, mostly outside, back-and-forth from his seats, spending time near the paddock before the weekend's stakes, mingling with other racing fans and snagging autographs from horsemen.
"Year over year, Pimlico was really great and they let me get closer and closer and better and better seats," Riboldi said. "And then, last year, my seats were in the second tier, first row between the 16th pole and the finish line. When I heard the race was moving, I was worried because we had such great seats for those races."
Riboldi said he'll miss the Preakness at old Pimlico, which he found charming despite it receiving a "bad rap" every year when the Triple Crown made its swing through the Mid-Atlantic. He looks forward to returning when the new track is built and didn't hesitate to buy tickets for this year's edition when offered the chance.
"I just love the tradition of the old tracks, you know. I like the old tracks," he said. "You know, that's the one race that you go to where you still have a chance at that Triple Crown
. . . You've got that promise of that. I guess that's why I like the Preakness as much as I do.
"There was no doubt we were going to go this year. Of course, I'll say that if they weren't going to give me comparable seats, maybe that would have changed my mind . . . But they were great with me. They gave me very, very similar seats for the race at Laurel, which, has access to the paddock and things like that."
Ribaldi also plunked down more than $200 for a two-day parking pass, which he hopes will make getting in and out of the facility easier on the big days. Laurel only has about 3,000 parking spaces, another reason for the capped attendance.
The Friday and Saturday cards will also look much like their counterparts in recent years at Pimlico, heavy on stakes and allowance events and 14 races per day.
Black-Eyed Susan Day features six stakes worth $1.05 million. Preakness Day includes nine stakes, including the $2 million headliner, worth $3.15 million. The combined $4.2 million in stakes purses matches last year's amount at Pimlico. The Preakness weekend stakes will run under the same conditions at the same distances aside from the turf sprints -- the $100,000 The Very One May 15 and $125,000 Jim McKay May 16, which were extended from 5 to 51⁄2 furlongs because of Laurel's turf course configuration.
Jillian Tullock, racing secretary for the Maryland Jockey Club, expects the usual challenges in the modern era of filling the races and attracting the best runners for the weekend's stakes. She also hopes some of the features at Laurel will entice horsemen to send horses to Maryland for the weekend.
"In this day and age with the way entries are going for everybody, you just don't know," Tullock said of expected field sizes. "You can't predict anything anymore. It's all the same races I always have, so hopefully we're able to put together some strong cards. It's a beautiful turf course. . . I know a lot of people haven't been here; a lot of the bigger people probably haven't been here. But at the same time, Todd Pletcher has run horses here. Steve Asmussen has run horses here. Doug O'Neill has run horses here.
"I don't think they'll look at it much differently. Everybody treats it the same. It's just a different track. For these races, if it's on their radar it's on their radar. And at the end of the day, it's still going to be the Preakness. It's still going to be the second leg of the Triple Crown and it's still going to be all the same stakes races on the undercards."
Pimlico's stakes barn, including the famous Stall 40 reserved for the Kentucky Derby winner, became a staple hangout for horsemen, owners, breeders, media and racing personalities throughout Preakness week. An adjoining hospitality tent, a spot where backstretch workers and other horseman could grab a quick meal, was also part of the scene. Both are planned for Laurel.
"Yes, we're going to have the hospitality tent outside the stakes barn," Tullock said. "We actually have two stakes barns. Mike Trombetta was kind enough to move out of his barn temporarily and we're using that because it sits right up on the hill in the turn. It kind of overlooks the turn."
Fans and horseman should also expect a change to the saddling procedure for this year's Preakness. The tradition of saddling and/or legging up jockeys on the turf course will not be utilized. The Preakness field will be saddled in Laurel's paddock, Tullock said.
Other elements familiar and popular to Pimlico, including Black-Eyed Susan cocktails from on-foot vendors and crab cakes at the concession stands, will be part of the 2026 Preakness. Finish line suites were being built to replace some of the hospitality tent areas used at Pimlico to house horsemen competing in the day's stakes races and other guests.
"We'll still have the history and the tradition of the Preakness," Steer said. "That's really important, to have those long-standing elements -- the Woodlawn Vase, Black-Eyed Susans, the painting of the Preakness [weathervane] -- all incorporated into the Laurel footprint.
"Laurel itself is much smaller from a footprint standpoint. At Pimlico, as you know, there's always been a large infield where we've hosted the Turfside Terrace and Preakness Live and concerts and for many, many years throughout the history of the Preakness. At Laurel, the interior of the infield is actually a water reservoir. That changes things. It's a little bit more like Gulfstream Park, right? It doesn't have the infield space. What our team is doing is we will be building out things like a replica Turfside Terrace, so to speak, but that will be on the apron side."
Like the one Leariva was part of.
