These men have gathered every weekend for decades to do this together. Some have known one another since grammar school, others are newer companions, but they all share an important bond that nearly no one else in their lives understands: an almost religious devotion to horse racing. Their sacred sanctuary of choice: Pimlico Race Course.

For the nine men, many veterans nearing 80, the racetrack is the birthplace of their friendship. It’s been the site of their most lucrative moments and devastating losses, breakups and thrills, and payouts and debts. It’s brought ecstasy, and it’s certainly brought agony.

And pretty soon, it’s all going to change.

Pimlico is weeks away from closing on Sept. 1, before the complex is demolished and undergoes a $400 million rebuilding/renovation project.

Gone will be the rickety elevators, old-fashioned banquet chairs and faded red stands. The track, which saw the likes of Secretariat and Seabiscuit making history, will become a pile of dust in the coming months and be reborn as a sleeker, cleaner and more modern sporting establishment.

Before the facility transforms, the nine eccentrically dressed guys accompanied by partners and friends gathered around a bucket of KFC and a store-bought strawberry shortcake in early August to say goodbye to the facility that has in many ways defined their adulthoods.

The gang comes to the track to win money, but each feels fairly confident he’s lost more than he’s gained over the decades. Despite mounting personal evidence that horse betting is a losing game and the fact that it’s cost many of them relationships, apartments and jobs, they keep coming back for more. The reason is complex. For one, it instills in them a sense of subject matter authority. They may not speak Latin or Greek, but horse racing is a language in which they are all fluent.

Of course, there’s the pure sensation of making the correct bets.

“It’s a thing that come over you just picking the winner,” said Gene Bell, 77. “You’re hooked.”

And winning, as elusive as it may be, signifies something more than cash in their pockets and new bedazzled cowboy boots on their feet. For the nine men who have done mostly tedious, unrelenting physical labor their entire lives, it’s a shot at equality: their opportunity to kick back and just maybe make it big with little to no effort as those born into better circumstances have done for generations.

“It’s the only place where you can come with $2 and be among the rich and famous and you can get rich and they can get broke. It’s an even playing field. The only even playing field in the world is the racetrack,” said Andre Green, 74.

Though it was now decades ago for each of them, most of the men still vividly remember their first experience at Pimlico back in an era when food and drink flowed through the venue, widespread Simulcast was an evolution still off in the future, and the primary way to find out which horse was leading was to sit in the stands and watch the thoroughbreds run.

In the men’s early days of visiting the track, it catered to the entire family, they said, hosting pony rides for children and legendary parties for the non-betting types. Now, not even the bettors have to be at the facility to turn a profit on a wager and it shows in the complex’s upkeep.

Bell estimates he was about 21 when he first visited the track in the late 1960s. A friend invited him along.

He made a cautious initial bet of $2, won and made $91. Working at the time for Western Electric manufacturing telephone cords and earning $2.20 an hour, that momentary payout at the track surpassed what he’d made all week laboring in the factory. But, for this, he didn’t need to produce a certain yield, possess a particular degree or even break a sweat — just have a little bit of luck.

Richard Hannah, 78, still remembers going to Pimlico for the first time when he was 13 with his mother. She told him to choose a horse and if his pick won, he could keep the earnings.

“It was thrilling,” Hannah said.

Soon, he was at the track every day. Hannah and Bell even went on to work at Pimlico, Hannah as a waiter and Bell as a maintenance supervisor. Bell quit soon after getting pushback for extending his free meal benefit to all his friends and being accused of “feeding the racetrack.”

That’s an attitude the guys all share. Winning doesn’t mean much without sharing it. Every big payout, every meal, every available job or extra living space, they all share.

Horse betting became their shared religion and Pimlico their cathedral, but within its walls they each adopted different relationships with the practice of gambling. For most of their lives, the habit teetered between a passion and a vice. One day, it dipped a little too far into the latter for Hannah.

Rock bottom came on an ordinary racing day around the 1980s after Hannah had gotten his paycheck from his railroad job. He spent it all throughout the afternoon on bets. The last race of the day arrived. He gambled on a combination. The horses finished in the order he anticipated. He had won $8,000.

Then a dreaded alert appeared on the screen: “inquiry.” One of the horses was taken out of the running. Just like that, the promise of $8,000 was gone and Hannah would be going home to his wife flat broke.

“I thought I was going to have a heart attack,” he said. “I was laying on the rail, holding on, tears running down my eyes.”

His previously lighthearted pastime had hijacked his life, his happiness, his relationship with his family and his health.

“Believe it or not, I kind of felt suicidal,” Hannah said. “After that, I went to Gamblers Anonymous.”

He left the track for a year. It’s a period the men call “Richard’s hiatus.”

Once he returned to Pimlico, he made a few critical changes. He bet only with the cash in his pocket, opened a bank account separate from his wife’s and, most importantly, joined a new group of racetrack friends, a set more trustworthy and invested in his well-being than his prior crew — this was Gene Bell’s gang.

As the guys saved him then, he saved them later down the line: availing his furnished apartments to them when they were down on their luck and offering most of them jobs at his home improvement company. He said the hiatus was one of the best decisions he ever made. If he kept going in the direction he was headed, “I wouldn’t have anything,” he said.

Hannah put all three of his kids through college and recently celebrated his 54th anniversary with his wife.

Bell is sometimes envious of that lifestyle. He’s never been married, nor had children.

“In my lifetime I’ve lost about three good women, I don’t know how many apartments and cars, messing with the horses,” he said. “If I could go back, when the young lady says to me, ‘Me or the horses,’ instead of me saying, ‘When are you leaving?’ I would have made a different scenario.”

Though he hasn’t left the track with much cash to his name, he’s rich with a currency he considers much more valuable: memories. Whether it’s a rollicking moment in the clubhouse, a Preakness day dressed to the nines and feeling like a mini-celebrity or an eye-rolling encounter with Tipsheet Tony or other racetrack characters, moments at Pimlico have filled his pockets with an overflowing stack of good times, he said.

Pimlico closing for renovations | PHOTOS

Green is content with the lifestyle he’s chosen. Not one big on “Christmas trees,” “Easter baskets” and other trappings of domestic life, his home is where the action is and the most special female in his life very well might be Safely Kept, the filly who defeated a male horse, Dayjur, who was favored to finish first at the 1990 Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Belmont Park. The upset generated a wad of green for Green and some major bragging rights.

Horse betting has led Green to seeing the world, having unforgettable adventures at racetracks across the country, and finding a family in his buddies at his hometown track of Pimlico. Every day is different and that’s just how he likes it.

“I’m right where I want to be,” Green said.

Near the conclusion of the afternoon, Green recalled a poignant conversation with an old girlfriend.

“She said, ‘You know, you need to get in touch with God and get the good book,‘” he said.

Green pointed to the pages on the table compiling each horse’s statistics.

“That’s my good book,” he said.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Churchill Downs has rescinded its extended suspension of Bob Baffert, allowing the Hall of Fame trainer to resume racing his horses at the historic track and partner facilities after more than three years of banishment for a failed drug test of ultimately disqualified 2021 Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit.

The stunning announcement came Friday after Baffert issued a statement in which he took responsibility for now-deceased colt Medina Spirit’s failed drug test after crossing the finish line in the 147th Kentucky Derby in May 2021. Kentucky racing stewards disqualified Medina Spirit the following winter, and Churchill Downs elevated runner-up Mandaloun to Derby winner.

Churchill Downs said in a release that it was satisfied for Baffert taking responsibility while completing the penalty and committing to compliance.

“All parties agree that it is time to bring this chapter to a close and focus on the future. Baffert is welcome to return to any of CDI’s racetracks, including our flagship Churchill Downs Racetrack, and we wish him and his connections good luck in their future competitive endeavors,” Churchill Downs Inc. CEO Bill Carstanjen said in the statement.

The two-time Triple Crown winning trainer frequently criticized the ban and had unsuccessfully sued Churchill Downs, which last year extended the ban to the end of 2024 for subsequent criticism. Medina Spirit’s owner, Zedan Racing Stables, had sued for the trainer’s discipline to end this spring in an effort to get his Baffert-trained Arkansas Derby winner Muth into the 150th Derby.

In accepting responsibility, the 71-year-old Baffert acknowledged that he had paid a “very steep price” with the suspension and disqualification while assuming responsibility for substances in any horses that he trains. He also said he appreciated that the track and the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission enforcing the rules believed necessary to protect the safety and integrity of horse racing and the reputation of the Kentucky Derby.

“My family and I want to put this behind us and get back to doing what we love to do without anymore distraction or negativity,” Baffert added. “I very much look forward to returning to Churchill Downs and getting back to the Winner’s Circle.”

The suspension ultimately denied Baffert a record-breaking seventh Kentucky Derby victory and tarnished the reputation of a trainer considered the face of horse racing.

More importantly, it left Baffert outside of the race he cherishes most, at the track where his former Barn 33 on the back side was a required stop for fellow horsemen, media and countless tourists. Not to mention, a fractured relationship between the sides.

Baffert’s absence was especially palpable at this year’s milestone 150th Derby – an epic race that Mystik Dan won by a nose over Sierra Leone and Forever Young in a three-wide photo finish.

But while Churchill Downs’ ban denied Baffert from competing in horse racing’s marquee event, his horses were able to compete in other legs of the Triple Crown. His colt, National Treasure, won last year’s Preakness in Baltimore.

The announcement on Friday brought settlement and closure, opening the door for Baffert to again race his horses beneath the Twin Spires on racing’s biggest day on the first Saturday next May.

Specifics are few. But, with an eye toward weekslong efforts in Louisville, Kentucky, to annually promote the Kentucky Derby, organizers are seeking to generate more interest in the second jewel of horse racing’s Triple Crown.

“What we’re trying to do is bring back some of the tradition that existed in the past, while maybe cultivating some new ideas and some new thoughts on what a Preakness festival concept would look like,” Terry Hasseltine, president of the Sport and Entertainment Corporation of Maryland, a nonprofit, said in an interview Wednesday.

The Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority, which was formed last year, agreed during a board meeting Monday to partner with the nonprofit sports corporation on the Preakness festival for next year’s event and beyond.

Hasseltine, who previously worked as the deputy executive director of the Kentucky Sports Authority, said the festival will be a “series of events” that grows larger in coming years. Ideally, he said, it would encourage travelers to make a “several-day visitation” to Baltimore.

“We’re trying to create something that is, I wouldn’t say it’s an exact mirror of the Derby Festival,” he said, “but creates something that is well-thought-out, well-delivered and creates people putting the Preakness on that travel bucket list.”

The festival will be anchored by a large spectacle, such as a concert, a fireworks display or a drone show. In Louisville, a massive fireworks show, which the Kentucky Derby Festival bills as the nation’s largest such annual event, takes place two weeks before the Derby.

“It can’t be a cutting of a ribbon,” Hasseltine said of the Baltimore festival’s kickoff. “It’s got to be something that says, we’re putting our foot down, this is the start of Preakness celebration 150.”

Activities ahead of next year’s Preakness will be funded by a “public-private consortium that has to be put together,” Hasseltine said.

Initial plans are focused on next year’s race, but the events could provide a “template” for an annual festival, racing authority Chair Greg Cross said.

“If we do it right, every year will get better and better,” he said.

In decades past, the week before the Preakness was full of regional and local events: hot air balloon races, daily block parties, talent shows, and several gatherings and festivals. (Six days before the 1993 Preakness, one of the many musical acts playing at the free “Fells Point Preakness Festival” was a yet-to-be-fully-discovered Dave Matthews Band.)

And although Preakness weekend hosts concerts at Pimlico each year, the long-running parade and other events outside the track began to wane in the 2010s.

An event resurgence would complement public investment in horse racing, as roughly $400 million in state funds will be used in the coming years to rebuild Pimlico — in desperate need of repair — and a training center elsewhere in the state. The racing authority has yet to decide where that site will be. As part of the plan, Anne Arundel County’s Laurel Park will host the 2026 Preakness, but cease to exist as a racetrack once the renovated Pimlico opens in 2027.

Under the original plan, some of the barns on Pimlico’s backstretch, as well the decrepit Old Grandstand, which has been closed for years because of safety concerns, would be demolished before the 2025 Preakness.

That has been revised, however. While the barns will be destroyed as envisioned, the grandstand will stay standing until after next year’s Preakness, when the bulk of demolition will occur. Authorities found that it would be costly to destroy the grandstand while keeping the clubhouse intact.

“We’ll do the demolition all at one time, after Preakness 150 next May,” Gary McGuigan, the Maryland Stadium Authority’s executive vice president for Capital Projects Development, said earlier this month.

Cross said, however, that he “100%” expects a rebuilt Pimlico to host the Preakness in 2027, as scheduled.

Baltimore design firm Ayers Saint Gross has been contracted by the stadium authority as the Pimlico project’s architect with assistance from Populous. Canopy Team, a Baltimore-based planning, design and development firm led by former Oriole Park design and planning director Janet Marie Smith, is also providing services.

The Stronach Group, which operates racing in the state and formerly owned Pimlico, transferred the racetrack to the state’s racing authority July 1. A nonprofit, which will be created by the state this year and is expected to be named the Maryland Jockey Club, will take over racing operations from The Stronach Group on Jan. 1.

While Stronach will run the Preakness in 2025 and 2026, that nonprofit will operate the Preakness beginning in 2027, paying Stronach roughly $5 million annually for the rights to the race.

The Preakness has historically been a moneymaker for the racing industry, but in recent years, it has operated in the red. A new operator will hope to increase attendance and revenues.

“We want to make Preakness great again,” Marc Broady, executive director of the racing authority, said earlier this year.

As recently as 2019, an announced crowd of more than 180,000 attended Preakness events on Friday and Saturday. But Stronach has said in recent years that it made an “intentional choice to reduce the footprint,” and this year’s two-day event hosted 63,423.

Those numbers are expected to increase at a revamped Pimlico.

One other consideration Hasseltine brought up was the potential impact that a scheduling shuffle could have on buzz around the Preakness. There are no current plans to make a change to the Triple Crown schedule, but some fans and industry leaders have suggested moving the Preakness — which takes place two weeks after the Derby — later into the year, allowing three or four weeks between races.

Doing so would give horses more time to rest between the premier events. But it would also, Hasseltine hypothesized, provide more time for celebrity attendees of the Derby to attend the Preakness.

The state took ownership of the track from The Stronach Group on July 1 as part of the redevelopment plan, passed earlier this year by the General Assembly.

In conjunction with that transfer, Maryland Jockey Club acting president Mike Rogers informed the state’s horsemen that the dilapidated facility will close in September, meaning trainers, backstretch workers and horses stabled at Pimlico will need to move to Laurel Park over the next two months.

“The benefits of this agreement to the state of Maryland and Maryland Thoroughbred racing industry are significant,” Rogers wrote.

The 2025 Preakness Stakes will still be held at Pimlico, though demolition is expected to have begun by then. The state’s signature race is scheduled to move to Laurel Park in 2026 before returning to a redeveloped Pimlico as early as 2027.

Plans had called for the old grandstand at Pimlico to be demolished before next year’s Preakness, but that timeline is changing.

During the Maryland Stadium Authority’s monthly board meeting Tuesday, an official supervising the project said it would be too expensive to demolish the old grandstand while still keeping the clubhouse standing as envisioned.

“We were doing an engineering analysis for the demolition of the old grandstands and what we found out is it’ll probably cost a lot of money to demolish the old grandstands and keep the clubhouse in place,” Gary McGuigan, the authority’s Executive Vice President for Capital Projects Development, told the board. “We’d have to underpin some of the areas to keep the clubhouse in place, so we are deciding that we’ll do the demolition all at one time, after Preakness 150 next May.”

Only some barns on the backstretch will be demolished before the next Preakness, McGuigan said.

Meanwhile, a new state-created nonprofit will take over operating the sport at the beginning of next year, with daily racing continuing at Laurel Park until it’s ultimately consolidated at the restored Pimlico.

“The transfer of the track will keep horse racing at Pimlico for generations and will deliver economic prosperity to the Park Heights community and the City of Baltimore,” Gov. Wes Moore said in a statement Tuesday. “The Preakness is an event deeply embedded into our state’s fabric and provides one day a year, every year, where all eyes are on Baltimore. Now, the legacy of the Preakness is safely in public hands. Pimlico will become the home of Thoroughbred racing in Maryland, making it a year-round hub of economic activity.”

State Del. Sandy Rosenberg, a Democrat whose district includes Pimlico, said state officials have begun monthly meetings with community representatives to “consider priorities and funding for community investment.”

“The transfer is yet another step towards redevelopment for both the race track and the surrounding communities,” Rosenberg said.

McGuigan also noted during Tuesday’s stadium authority meeting that two new consultants have been engaged by the Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority as part of the Pimlico project. The Canopy Team, a Baltimore-based planning, design and development firm led by former Oriole Park design and planning director Janet Marie Smith, will provide services, as well as marketing company Gold Rabbit Sports.

Baltimore Sun reporter Hayes Gardner contributed to this article. 

The 91-year-old was charged Friday with five crimes including rape, indecent assault on a female, sexual assault and forcible confinement, Peel Regional Police said. He was released with conditions and will appear at the Ontario Court of Justice in Brampton, Ontario, at a later date, the police statement said.

Peel Regional Police Constable Tyler Bell said there is more than one accuser but declined to say how many.

“Obviously, this is a high-profile case. Our special victims unit is bound to protect the victims and in doing so that’s why were are being vague,” Bell said. “There is more than one victim but we won’t confirm that number yet.”

Police allege the sexual assaults occurred from the 1980s to as recent as 2023. Bell said they are appealing for people to come forward if they have information or have been victims.

Stronach didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

He has hired prominent Canadian defense lawyer Brian Greenspan.

“Mr. Stronach categorically denies the allegations of impropriety which have been brought against him,” Greenspan said in an e-mail. “He looks forward to the opportunity to fully respond to the charges and to maintain his legacy both as a philanthropist and as an icon of the Canadian business community.”

Stronach, born in Austria, became one of Canada’s wealthiest people by creating Magna in his garage in 1957 and building it into one of the world’s largest suppliers of auto parts.

He also founded The Stronach Group, a company that specializes in horse racing. In January, The Stronach Group, which owns Pimlico Race Course, agreed to cede control of the track to the state of Maryland while keeping intellectual rights to the Preakness and collecting about $5 million annually in both leasing rights from the state and a percentage of the Preakness handle. The deal was sealed last month as the Maryland Board of Public Works approved the transfer of ownership of Pimlico to the state.

The Stronach Group, also known as 1/ST Racing, will continue to own Anne Arundel County’s Laurel Park, which will shut down racing operations in the coming years, leaving Maryland with a single one-mile track. A nonprofit created by the racing authority will take control of racing in the state and is also expected to use the name “Maryland Jockey Club,” the storied brand that dates to 1743 under which The Stronach Group currently operates.

Frank Stronach made a brief foray into Austrian politics more than a decade ago and has been named to the Order of Canada, one of the country’s highest honors.

A Magna spokesperson said Stronach has had no affiliation with the company since relinquishing control in 2010.

“We have recently been made aware of the charges filed against Frank Stronach,” Dave Niemiec said in an email Friday evening. “Magna has no knowledge of the investigation or the allegations that have been raised beyond what has been reported in the media.”

Niemiec said the company would not comment further on the ongoing legal matter.

In 2018, Frank sued his daughter, two grandchildren and former business associate Alon Ossip for over $500 million in Ontario Superior Court alleging they mismanaged the family’s assets and conspired to take control of them.

Belinda Stronach, a former Canadian Member of Parliament and current CEO of The Stronach Group, countersued her father, saying in a statement of defense that he lost vast sums of money on pet projects. The case was later settled.

This story might be updated.

In 2022, 42,055 attended the Preakness with “60,000+” attending both Friday and Saturday, according to a news release from The Stronach Group, which hosts the race. Last year, an announced 46,999 attended the Preakness, with a combined 65,000 attending both days. A spokesperson for the group did not have specific figures for Friday and Saturday on Sunday evening.

From 2011 to 2019, Preakness Day regularly drew more than 100,000 attendees. In 2019, roughly 182,000 attended the weekend, including 131,256 on Preakness Day.

However, the aged Pimlico Race Course in Northwest Baltimore has seen multiple problems in recent years. The smaller crowds are by design, organizers say.

“The reimagination of the event layout for Preakness festivities reflects 1/ST’s commitment to providing a thoughtfully curated experience for all guests,” the Maryland Jockey Club said in a statement ahead of this year’s race. “The intentional choice to reduce the footprint is designed to offer improved hospitality and entertainment for all in attendance while maintaining the energy and excitement synonymous with the Preakness.”

Preakness weekend has featured infield concerts for more than 15 years and for the second consecutive year, the main act performed after the signature race, rather than beforehand or on Friday evening. Rapper Jack Harlow, a Kentucky native who, fittingly, has a song called “Churchill Downs” after the home of that state’s Derby, performed an 18-song set Saturday after Seize the Grey won the 149th running of the Preakness Stakes.

The Preakness will be a different event in a few years — provided a new plan to renovate Pimlico, after many false starts, is successful. The $400 million blueprint calls for rebuilding the venue and constructing a training track elsewhere in the state. Demolition will begin before next year’s running of the Preakness, the 150th edition, at Pimlico. In 2026, the race will temporarily move to Laurel Park in Anne Arundel County.

By 2027, if the timeline holds, a new Pimlico would host the Preakness. Laurel Park would cease to operate as a racetrack.

At that point, the Preakness would be operated not by Stronach, but by a state-created nonprofit and changes could be coming to the event. The Preakness, which has not been profitable in recent years, might not host concerts down the road and attendance is expected to be higher.

Preliminary designs for the new Pimlico envision seating for 79,000, not including the infield.

Baltimore Sun reporter Dillon Mullan contributed to this article.

Come on, now.

The 88-year-old trainer was awake before 3 a.m., worrying about a sesamoid fracture suffered by his other Preakness horse, Just Steel (with a pin inserted, he’ll be fine, Lukas said). He was at Pimlico Race Course by 5 a.m. to watch a perky Seize the Grey pace the shed row alertly and munch on some nearby grass. He was deep into several rounds of interviews by 6 a.m., thinking ahead — always ahead — about getting the whole operation back on the road to Kentucky the next morning.

Lukas was never one to pause and soak in a moment. His doggedness made him great in the first place, carrying him to the top of his profession in the 1990s, when he dominated the Triple Crown series, created a new model of training with thriving barns all around the country and rubbed plenty of people the wrong way with his brusque will to win at all costs.

He’s a more graceful public figure now, comfortable in his role as thoroughbred racing’s elder statesman and grateful for the affection of old rivals such as Bob Baffert and Kenny McPeek, both of whom hugged him after Seize the Grey beat their horses Saturday.

But that same old rage to win burns in him still. As Lukas said in the afterglow of Seize the Grey’s victory, these big races are the reason he still rises before dawn every morning to go to his barn in Kentucky.

“Don’t let that sofa pull you down,” he said. “It’s a little easy when that alarm goes off to say, ‘Oh, my God, I don’t know if I really want to do this today.’ Erase that.”

There is a greater message to take from Lukas’ first Preakness win since 2013.

On the one hand, there’s comfort in watching the grand old man of a sport reclaim his place in the sun, perhaps for the final time. As we heard Baffert and McPeek say after the race, if they were going to lose to anyone, they wanted it to be Lukas.

Baffert, 17 years Lukas’ junior and the only trainer with more Preakness wins, marveled, “I’m in awe of what he pulled off.”

2024 Preakness Stakes race | PHOTOS

Yes, it’s easy to talk about Lukas as a lion in winter, fending off the younger members of the pride.

On the other hand, like the Triple Crown series itself, he’s a creature of spring, a monument to renewal.

Though he had no desire to stop, Lukas appeared to be done as a top trainer a few years back. The titanic owners who funded his searches for the next crops of star yearlings had passed away. He no longer ran as many horses, and the ones he did run didn’t win as much. He didn’t have the talent to go to the big summer races at Saratoga. He wasn’t on hand for the Preakness last year.

But Lukas never stopped believing that if he found the right owners, his gifts for spotting and nurturing young racehorses were as keen as ever. And he did find those backers. And he is running and winning again.

That inexhaustible push rubs off on the people around him.

Jaime Torres didn’t know anything about the jockey trade when he happened to watch a race on television in his native Puerto Rico five years ago. It just looked fun. After learning the ropes in school, Torres made his way to Kentucky and introduced himself to Lukas outside the trainer’s tack room one morning. Each day, he came back, just hoping to get on one of Lukas’ horses for some exercise work. His persistence sparked with the older man, who gave him a few shots and liked the way Torres handled his opportunities.

Only once did he chew the polite young rider out, and that was because he felt Torres accepted defeat instead of fighting to move up as far as possible.

“I told him, I said, ‘If you can be fourth, you better be fourth,'” Lukas said. “If you can’t be fourth, be fifth. If you can’t be fifth, be sixth. I got a legal pad out and I showed him the percentages. This 5% [difference] to that owner, today that was $6,000. That’s a training bill plus. I said, ‘Hey, I’ll revive ’em in the morning. You ride them.'”

After Torres rode Seize the Grey to victory in the Pat Day Mile two weeks ago, he said he could hear Lukas’ urging voice in his head all the way around.

On Saturday, Lukas watched Torres settle Seize the Grey into a beautiful rhythm over the “deep and sticky” mud at Pimlico. It was the 25-year-old’s first ride in the Triple Crown series. Lukas has won 15 Triple Crown races. But they celebrated together, bound by their refusal to take no for an answer.

It’s facile to suggest any one story will patch over what ails thoroughbred racing in general and the Preakness in particular.

At this time last year, we had to balance Baffert winning his eighth Preakness with the fact that another of his horses, Havnameltdown, died after a terrible accident on the undercard.

Always at Pimlico there are questions about the crumbling facility with its inoperable elevator and condemned section of grandstand. The General Assembly approved a $400 million plan to demolish what’s there and build something better in its place. Those who crafted this plan understand public skepticism given the many stops and starts in past quests to resurrect Pimlico. There really are fewer impediments this time. The hope is that wrecking balls will swing before next year’s Preakness and the event will return to a spiffier home in 2027 after a year at Laurel Park.

Could a new venue correlate with a new sense of momentum for the state’s signature race, which has lost money in recent years as crowds have dwindled to 40% of what they were before the covid pandemic? Those charged with creating a path forward say they will seek a different model than the entertainment spectacles put on by The Stronach Group, with expensive headlining acts such as Bruno Mars last year and Jack Harlow on Saturday. Can the Preakness reach a brighter future by revisiting its past? We’ll see.

Again, it would be too easy to say Lukas’ win is a perfect metaphor for what needs to happen with Pimlico and the Preakness, but there is a certain thematic serendipity to it.

He needed to win one of these races to feel like himself again, and the joke’s on you if you think it’s a capstone. Lukas took Seize the Grey’s victory as a sure sign that his stable is again revving up. He’ll probably take his Preakness champion on to the Belmont Stakes. And he likes his 2-year-olds even better than these 3-year-olds.

As he sat outside his barn Sunday morning, wearing a D. Wayne Lukas Racing ball cap in place of the showier white cowboy hat he favors on race day, he was asked if he expects to be back in the same chair, at age 89, come next Preakness.

“You’re damn right,” he said. “If I’m not, they need to fire me.”

Purchasing a horse is typically a pricey endeavor, but through MyRacehorse, individuals can buy tiny, more affordable stakes. Ruffini, who owns portions of 14 horses, had just wanted to be able to say she possessed some racehorse shares. She got more than she bargained for.

On Saturday, Seize the Grey won the 149th Preakness Stakes — holding off second-place finisher Mystik Dan, who won the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago — and making thousands of people champions of a Triple Crown race.

“Now I can say I own shares on a Preakness winner!” Ruffini wrote in a text message.

Of the more than 2,570 individuals who own at least a portion of Seize the Grey, 48 live in Maryland.

Another one of the Maryland owners was Debbie Nakayama, a Harford County Public Library employee who spent roughly $150 on shares of Seize the Grey last year.

WE JUST WON THE PREAKNESS! SEIZE THE GREY IS YOUR 2024 PREAKNESS WINNER. Congrats to all owners!!!! pic.twitter.com/khuUcSMYFB

— MyRacehorse (@MyRacehorse) May 18, 2024

“I am over the moon,” said Nakayama, who was already feeling pretty confident about the horse’s chances when she saw the forecast calling for rain on race day. “I’m not surprised. He likes the mud.”

She chose to invest in Seize the Grey when she saw him in Saratoga Springs, New York, on a trip to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame — in part because she was a fan of his sire, Arrogate.

Nakayama has owned horses before, but none who have achieved anything on the level of what Seize the Grey did Saturday. She first became interested in horse racing in the 1970s when her brother, David, took her to her first race. He died in 2010 of esophageal cancer, but she said he’d be proud of where her keen eye for winning colts led her.

“I’m sure he’s looking down thinking, ‘Wow. I taught her well,'” Nakayama said.

She couldn’t be at the track Saturday due to her bad back, but enjoyed watching the race on TV from her home in Bel Air.

“It’s so cool that people, average everyday people, are in on a horse that won a Triple Crown race,” she said, adding it’s perhaps more exciting for them than for billionaires who buy horses in full. “It’s just been an awesome ride; it really has.”

Jonathan Poland, another owner of Seize the Grey, watched the race at Pimlico with his son. He described the feeling of winning as “almost overwhelming, when you think of the history of this race.”

“If you only own one or two hairs on the horse,” he said, “it’s better than not owning a horse at all.”

A portion of Authentic, the 2020 Kentucky Derby winner, was owned by MyRacehorse, with thousands of micro-owners purchasing stakes. Michael Behrens, the founder of MyRacehors, said in a news conference Saturday that his company’s goal is to “allow anybody the biggest thrill of winning the biggest races.”

“We just had 2,570 people experience one of the greatest thrills in racing,” he said. “You saw the energy out there. There was so much excitement, there were tears. My voice is almost gone. I think half the 2,500 peoples’ voice is gone.”

Seize the Grey is owned by MyRacehorse, a platform that allows individuals, with or without deep pockets, to own a piece of a horse. More than 2,500 people, including 48 from Maryland, own a tiny slice of the new Preakness winner, trained by D. Wayne Lukas. One stake in the horse paid out $127 a share, which comes on top of earnings from other races.

Liz Ruffini of Towson arrived at Pimlico around 8:30 a.m., as she usually does, but this year, it came with a more personal investment.

When she purchased a piece of Seize the Grey, she’d just wanted to say she owned a share of a racehorse. Now, she told The Baltimore Sun, she can say she owns a share of a Preakness winner. “It feels amazing,” she said via text.

Jonathan Poland, a racing fan from Anne Arundel County, purchased a single share of the horse. “If you only own one or two hairs on the horse, it’s better than not owning a horse at all.” Afterward, he called the victory “overwhelming, when you think of the history of this race.”

The 149th Preakness Stakes represented the last gasps of an era — and the hope for what’s to come.

Amid on-again-off-again rain, infield concertgoers danced around puddles while racing fans tried to pick winners from the grandstand. In some ways, it was the same as it’s been for years. In others, it represented a long-anticipated crossroads for the storied, yet troubled race and industry.

Fresh off the signing of a new law that would use $400 million in state bonds to renovate the Pimlico Race Course and build a training track elsewhere, some fans expressed skepticism that a new Pimlico would ever, actually come to fruition, while some displayed optimism. Others, like Michelle Richburg, were just happy to have won $12.50 on their first-ever wager and to have tasted — and delighted in, to her surprise — a black-eyed Susan cocktail.

“Just the liveliness, the people watching,” Richburg, who moved to Baltimore last year with her husband, Ron, said of attending her first Preakness. “Why not?”

Following the race, a performance from headlining rapper Jack Harlow capped a full day at Pimlico. Organizers did not provide attendance figures immediately after the Preakness Stakes, but the crowd did not appear to be any larger than last year’s, an announced 46,999. That’s a far cry from decades prior, when more than 100,000 people regularly flocked to the track, but is by design, Preakness officials have said.

2024 Preakness day | PHOTOS

Saturday’s race was expected to be the last Preakness before demolition begins at Pimlico.

Ahead of next year’s event — as part of the new blueprint that would eventually call for a state-created nonprofit to operate the Preakness instead of The Stronach Group, the longtime Canadian operator — some old barns and the condemned Old Grandstand are expected to be destroyed.

Finally, after decades of decay, Pimlico is on the precipice of being equipped to host a race as prestigious as the Preakness. Wrecking balls are expected to visit Pimlico, which would mark an elusive sign of physical progress, before next year’s race, the 150th edition. During the new venue’s construction in 2026, the race will temporarily move to Laurel Park (which will eventually cease to operate as a track), and in 2027, it will return to a newly minted facility in Northwest Baltimore.

At least, that’s the plan.

“I would say it’s 50-50,” racing fan Kevin Perry said Saturday of his confidence in the timeline, noting that that’s an improvement from prior years. “[It] used to be just a running joke — so there was zero chance.”

The usual problems — inoperable elevators, blemished walls, out-of-order signs taped to bathroom doors — greeted turf fans and festival attendees, the two genres of Preakness attendees. There was also a peculiar injury, witnesses say. Three people told The Sun they saw a pony bite the finger of an elderly woman trying to feed the pony carrots. A small piece of her middle finger was bit off and she was taken to a hospital, the witnesses said.

Still, the revelry carried on.

Before noon, a fan poured beer down his throat through a horse head mask and others danced in the mud as acts like Frank Walker, Gryffin and Channel Tres performed in the afternoon. Inside the concourse, cheers as horses sprinted down the stretch replaced the sound of live music. Anthony Kinoian, who grew up around racetracks like Narragansett in Rhode Island, had his nose in a program as he handicapped earlier races.

“Of course, I’m making wagers,” he said when asked if he was betting. “That’s my life — I’ve been doing it for 50 years.” He also offered a reporter a winning pick — Catching Freedom in the Preakness, a premonition unrealized when the horse placed third.

2024 Preakness: Fashion, celebrities and hats | PHOTOS

When the recent $400 million plan to renovate Pimlico was passed, some lawmakers bristled at the idea of using state-backed funds to rebuild Pimlico and add a training track elsewhere in the state — either Bowie, Aberdeen or Woodbine — but by 2027, a revamped Pimlico is expected to welcome a much larger crowd, potentially more than 100,000 people.

“We want to make Preakness great again,” Marc Borady, executive director of the Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority, told The Sun earlier this month. “It’s that simple.”

A new day seems to dawn for racing. But amid the back-slapping, as the plan was agreed to, questions remain. Can the state-created nonprofit do what a private company could not — operate racing in the state without millions of dollars in annual losses?

Recent history would suggest no. Proponents of the brave new plan say yes.

Some skeptics question the new deal to renovate dilapidated Pimlico — which would tear down the aging venue and rebuild it on a new axis. Scribbled on a “History of the Preakness” placard in the press box bathroom was a postscript to the storied event’s lineage. “In 2023, the main elevator was euthanized,” the written text read. “In 2024, the track was euthanized.”

As the deal received final approval Wednesday in Annapolis, Maryland Treasurer Dereck Davis said that during his three decades as a lawmaker, “we’ve been a few laps around the track trying to make this happen,” but that efforts have “fallen flat.”

“What can we say to Marylanders? I mean, respectfully, the platitudes are nice. Why is this different than other failed attempts?” he asked.

Perry, a racing fan, said he’s heard of plans to rebuild Pimlico “all my life,” but this time, it feels more “serious.” Other fans agreed, and officials say this iteration is different. The efforts are more solidified and the plans more concrete; this time, it’s real, they say.

“In years past, it’s been uncertainty,” Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, said Saturday. “I think this year it’s more celebratory.”

Greg Cross, chair of the racing authority, has cited a formal agreement with Stronach and the backing of the Park Heights neighborhood as reasons the vision will come to fruition.

“I feel like we’ve turned the corner,” he said.

The racing authority, which will create a nonprofit to operate the event come 2027, has said it seeks to return the event to its Maryland roots, perhaps removing the concerts that have become a staple, and, in the process, returning the event closer to its former attendance numbers.

“We have to get out in front of it and market it the right way,” Cross said.

As Seize the Grey crossed the finish line, a soundtrack of cheers from its many owners and fans echoed against the eerily empty Old Grandstand. Next year, it won’t be there — provided plans proceed as envisioned.

Baltimore Sun reporters Sam Janesch and Matt Weyrich contributed to this article.