Flatter: Debunking urban myths about Preakness and Pimlico

Baltimore

Tight turns. Speed bias.

Four words that are uttered constantly about Pimlico, especially this time of year before the Preakness Stakes.

Tight turns. Speed bias.

Here are two more words. Fake news.

Whenever there is casual chatter about Maryland racing in the middle of spring, the conversation inevitably wanders to the Port-A-Potty dashes on the infield, the skeletal remains of what was once glorious Pimlico and the supposed hairpin turns and speed bias on the main track.

I, messenger.

While I am at it, no, the sports term “upset” did not originate with the horse Upset upsetting Man o’ War in the 1919 Sanford Memorial at Saratoga. Maybe it was the late Bill Safire who discovered the term was nearly as old as the Preakness. “Racing is so uncertain that there may be a startling upset,” it was written in the July 17, 1877, edition of The New York Times. If it was not Safire, well, there goes another urban myth.

Here is yet another. That story about Doug Williams being asked at Super Bowl XXII how long he had been a Black quarterback? Never happened. The late Butch John of the Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Miss., actually asked, “Doug, obviously you’ve been a Black quarterback your whole life. When did race begin to matter to people?” It got to a point where Williams indulged the myth because it got to be such a chore to dispute it.

Oh, ever heard the one about Stu Miller being blown off the mound during one of the All-Star Games in 1961 at Candlestick Park? Nope. That was not how it happened. As he put it, “There was an extra gust of wind, and I just wavered a bit.” A balk was called, but he never lost his balance. Check the film.

But back to what got us here to Baltimore in the first place. Years ago, when Mike Watchmaker was writing for Daily Racing Form, he deconstructed the perception about the turns at Pimlico. Satellite photos begat Google Maps begat the indisputable evidence. Lay an image of Pimlico over an image of Churchill Downs, and the two tracks are practically identical.

The main track at Pimlico is narrower, and there is less banking on the outside of the turns, but the circumference is identical. Go to the Daft Logic website, where satellite photos may be used to measure distances to the nearest foot. The diameter of the turns on both main tracks is 828 feet.

With that geography lesson put to rest, what about the supposed speed bias? Well, what about Rombauer? He was the latest poster child for that exercise in myth busting with his rally from sixth place to win last May.

War of Will in 2019 and Swiss Skydiver in 2020 also closed from at least fourth place. Go back to 2018 to see when Justify was the last frontrunning winner of the Preakness. But it goes back further than that. Mike Shutty, who created and writes the Super Screener for Horse Racing Nation, went through every Preakness since 2002 to disprove the old notion.

“Of the 20 winners, think about this, 13 were off the pace,” Shutty said. “Seven were forwardly placed and presser types. You can definitively declare that the race is not inordinately biased to those that are forwardly placed. It’s all pace-driven for sure, like any other track.”

Pass the word about this, and maybe we can start hearing “loose turns, speed fails” about the Preakness. Nothing like starting new traditions at a track that has a hard time letting go.

The current grandstands were built in 1922, 1954 and 1959, and the glass-fronted clubhouse in 1960. When the newest part of Pimlico was opened, I was 1. Believe me, I could use a refurbishing, too.

The 1922 stand was condemned three years ago, eliminating about 7,000 seats. Somehow, a crowd of 131,256 – only 424 shy of a record – was still said to have attended that last pre-pandemic Preakness.

Temporary, two-story structures have risen on the infield for the benefit of high-rolling partygoers, the better to block the grandstand view of the backstretch. Other than those annual building projects, the most significant recent change to the look of Pimlico was a fire that burned down the original clubhouse in 1966.

It has been two years since the Maryland state government authorized a bond sale to raise $375 million, make improvements down the road at Laurel Park and do a complete rebuild of Pimlico. That was at the onset of the pandemic.

The projects have yet to begin. Well, that is not entirely true. There are pretty pictures of what the new Pimlico is supposed to look like, including a shrinking of the one-mile main track by 110 yards. Tighter turns might be real if that architectural rendering comes true.

Local media reports in recent weeks say that all sides recognize the need for more money, so they are literally back to the drawing board. It may be yet another year before plans are, ahem, finalized to start the rebuild.

Even the can that for more than a decade has been kicked down the road on this project is falling apart. There is no telling whether that can has been repainted, but Pimlico has been spiffed up with some fresh coats of red, white and black. Even the old press box – musty yet still providing one of the best views in racing – got new tables and chairs this year.

One old thing around here that got a welcome restoration this week was the Alibi Breakfast, which was held for the first time since the pandemic. What began more than eight decades ago with some horsemen swapping lies at the old clubhouse has grown into a fried-chicken-and-waffle feed that comes complete with owners, trainers, pseudo-VIPs and local dignitaries.

Thursday’s renewal came with an accidentally amusing moment. The local postmaster made a speech about Knicks Go, the 2021 horse of the year who was bred in Maryland. The problem was she kept referring to Knicks Go as “Kicks Go.” One might say that this was another case of the post office losing a letter. (Mirror, mirror, who would say such a thing?)

The good news amid these urban myths and bon mots is that the Preakness lives on. The persistent pandemic and crumbling grandstands cannot break it. Neither can the absence of the Kentucky Derby winner. A good filly facing eight colts is enough to take one’s mind off the aged surroundings for nearly two minutes.

As long as there is a dirt oval on which to run, the horses will not care about the crumbling bulwark. And what do you know? For the 147th time in the last century-and-a-half, the dirt is there. So are the horses. Thankfully, they will not be telling tall tales about tight turns and a speed bias.