The Preakness Stakes

Pimlico Race Course, 5201 Park Heights Ave., 410/542-9400,
www.preakness.com [1]

On the third Saturday in May, Baltimore’s Pimlico Race Course [2] is host to the middle jewel in horse racing’s Triple Crown (the first is the Kentucky Derby; the last is the Belmont Stakes). For the week before the race, Baltimore [3] hosts all sorts of parties, events, festivals, and other activities for the tens of thousands of visitors who descend on the city for pre-race fun.

Hot-air balloons fill the skies, and it seems like there’s a hospitality tent on every patch of ground around the Inner Harbor. Race day itself brings traffic on I-83 to a halt as the throngs head for Pimlico (the infield alone groans under the beer-sodden feet of some 104,000 people), and the evenings usually see bars and restaurants filled with tired, sunburned folks.