Preakness 2026: Maryland experts compare Laurel, Pimlico

Preakness 2026 is being run for what is intended to be just the one time next Saturday at Laurel Park. One good thing about that is much less effort will be expended to tamp down the urban myth about tighter turns and a speed bias at old Pimlico.

Those two traits have been disproved over the years when making comparisons with Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby. But compared with Laurel, yes, the turns at Pimlico are tighter. It is simple, really. The main track at Pimlico is a mile around. At Laurel, it is 1 1/8 miles.

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And so it goes that the Preakness will be a rare 1 3/16-mile race at Laurel with its more sweeping turns and bigger layout. That paucity of 9 1/2-furlong samples was just one difference that five longtime Maryland handicappers and track denizens discussed when they were asked by Horse Racing Nation about the differences between Laurel and Pimlico.

Long and short of homestretch

The Maryland Jockey Club says the homestretch at Pimlico was 1,152 feet from the end of the second turn to the finish line. It will be again when the Preakness returns there next year, if all goes according to schedule with the rebuild in Baltimore.

The homestretch at Laurel looks longer. From the end of the far turn to the start of the clubhouse turn, it is 1,344 feet. But that comes into play only when the second finish line is used. Yes, there are two.

For the Preakness, the main finish line is 330 feet up the track, cutting the distance of the homestretch to 1,014 feet. That is shorter than Belmont Park’s 1,097, where the quarter pole also is on the turn.

Dave Rodman, Maryland Jockey Club race caller. “The tight-turns myth at Pimlico, you know, is bogus. But that discussion goes out the window at Laurel, because the track is wider, and the turns are bigger. You can make a three- or four-wide move at the top of the stretch or even wider and still win.”

Bill Brasaemle, handicapper and Equibase chart caller. “The homestretch at Pimlico is longer than Laurel, but closers can win, and speed can win. There hasn’t been a huge edge in my eye in the last few years. Our (local) jockeys just love to swing to the outside and get down the stretch. If you’re sitting on the rail and I’m a come-from-behind horse, nine times out of 10, you can find room along the rail through the stretch.”

John Scheinman, handicapper, author, producer of new film “Pimlico from the Heart.” “The perfect analogy to look at in terms of this is Easy Goer and Sunday Silence for the old-timers. Sunday Silence’s athleticism gave him a slight advantage at Churchill Downs and definitely at Pimlico (during the 1989 Triple Crown campaign), although they went neck and neck down the stretch. But at Belmont Park, a 1 1/2-mile with those giant, long runs, a horse with an engine like Easy Goer can neutralize that nimble athleticism because he’s just a long-running powerhouse. It’s just a different kind of animal that excels in a different configuration. I think the same would hold true at these two different tracks.”

Dash to the first turn

The start of the Preakness will be just before the sixteenth pole next weekend. The last time a 1 3/16-mile race was run at Laurel in 2022, the run-up was 30 feet. That means it will be a 690-foot dash to the clubhouse turn in the Preakness. At Pimlico last year it was nearly 1,200 feet from gate to turn.

Keith Feustle, Equibase chart caller and former morning-line handicapper. “It’s just over an eighth of a mile at Laurel, whereas at Pimlico, you’ve got literally almost a quarter of a mile. You want to be toward the inside going to the first turn. Unless you’re just a deep closer, and you just take right back and drop in, if you’re drawn on the outside and you’re kind of that middle-of-the-road horse that needs a tactical kind of a style, it could definitely hurt you, for sure.”

Brasaemle. “In two-turn races, you’d like to save a little ground, at least on that first turn. It might actually be more important at Laurel to get an inside post than at Pimlico.”

Scheinman. “For (next Friday’s Grade 2) Black-Eyed Susan at a mile-and-an-eighth, it’s the same as Gulfstream. Everybody who knows Gulfstream knows that from the 10 hole out at a mile-and-an-eighth, you’re in trouble, because it’s such a short run (365 feet, including a 35-foot run-up) to the first turn.”

2nd finish line & turf rail

Unlike Gulfstream Park and Keeneland, where the alternate finish line is up the track from the main one, Laurel Park’s second wire is a sixteenth of a mile down the track at the end of the homestretch. That comes into play for the one-turn mile on the nine-furlong main track and sprints on the eight-furlong turf course.

The 5 1/2-furlong The Very One on Friday and the downsized 5 1/2-furlong Jim McKay Turf Sprint on Saturday, both on the grass, are the two stakes that will be run to the second finish line next week.

What’s more, the turf course has six names based on how far out the rail is placed. If the rail is true, it is called the All Along. It is known as the Bowl Game at 17 feet, Kelso at 35, Dahlia at 52, Exceller at 70 and Fort Marcy at 87.

Rodman. “It’s a long run, like more than more than a quarter-mile, so you can really deep close on the turf if there’s a torrid pace up front and on the dirt as well if it’s a mile. When they measured it, the times to me for the mile were a little bit slower than a mile somewhere else.”

Brasaemle. “They run that (one-turn dirt mile) distance quite often, because the horsemen don’t like to go a (two-turn) mile-and-a-sixteenth because it’s too close right into the first turn, even though they have a long, 110-foot run-up. So if you break from the 8 hole, it’s a big disadvantage.”

Feustle. “It’s just a little bit different styles to that second wire on the dirt and the turf. It’s a different visual. It has a little bit different feel. I like playing closers and spreads a little bit better at Pimlico than I do at Laurel. It’s definitely unique to that second wire.”

Rodman. “There are multiple turf course configurations there that they can use at Laurel. At Pimlico the difference between the inner rail and the outer rail, say on the first turn or the track in general, it may be less so than the difference between the feet and inches at Laurel.”

No golden rail, no speed bias?

Less of a tall tale at Pimlico, the rail path used to be the most desired on the dirt at Pimlico. That changed in recent years to where it sometimes was considered dead.

The conventional wisdom at Laurel Park is that there is no advantage being down to the inside in homestretch.

As for whether Laurel favors speed? That may be in the eye of the beholder or the day in question.

Smokin’ Joe McKay, handicapper and horseplayer from Bethesda, Md. “When you had those banks on the turns at Pimlico, the inside was good, and the rail was good. But that changed. The same thing happened at Fair Grounds. I don’t think that’s something that you can hang your head on anymore. It’s generally fair, but like most tracks, I think Laurel sometimes can favor horses that have speed up front. Like (trainer) Brittany Russell had that horse in the Preakness prep, (the 1 1/8-mile Federico Tesio on April 18), Taj Mahal, that went wire to wire. That track was favoring speed. (Jockey) Sheldon Russell just opened on those horses, and the race was over.”

Brasaemle. “From a handicapping standpoint, which is what I’m interested in, there’s not a huge difference between Laurel and Pimlico. They both played fair. Forty years ago Pimlico used to have a big rail bias, but I haven’t seen that in a long time. They both play fair.”

Scheinman. “The traditional reputation of Laurel and Pimlico is that they are slightly deeper, more forgiving track surfaces. They’re deeper, safer surfaces. They’re not racing strips. Not concrete. They’re deep and fair racetracks. If you watch Laurel or you look into the charts, you’ll see that Laurel plays pretty fairly for the most part.”

Feustle. “The track has been fair. We do a bias report where (track spokesperson) Dan Illman and Dave and I, we all just kind of hash it out before we put anything out there. And if you look in the handicapping guide on the Maryland Jockey Club website, there are very, very minimal dates where we thought it was really played one way or the other.”

The view is good

The crowd size will be capped at 4,800 people for Preakness week at Laurel. There is no zero missing there. It will be 4,800.

The most notable difference for TV viewers will be the absence of the notorious infield party. Instead of the thousands of revelers who were there as much or more for the Pimlico concerts as they were for the races, there is a pond on the Laurel infield. That also means there will be a clear view of the backstretch from the grandstand.

Rodman. “No tents, so I’ll have no excuse when I’m calling the races.”