Jockey

May. 18, Post Time: 10:45AM Entries and comments provided by the Maryland Jockey Club First - Purse $55,000, AOC $25,000-$20,000, 3 yo's & up, One And One Sixteenth Miles Post, Horse, Jockey, Trainer, Odds 1 Aussi Austin, Rosario, R.Rodriguez, 3-1 2 Bob's Gone Wild, Vargas, J.Lopez, 20-1 3 Jarrod's Commando, Karamanos, C.Garcia, 10-1 4 Warrensburg, Boyce, D.Barr, 20-1 5 Benny Or Local, Cruise, D.Kobiskie,...

Nearly a quarter century ago, Gary Stevens was an up-and-coming jockey in Southern California, hoping to make his mark on the sport, put a lot of money in the bank and move on to something else as quickly as possible. A conversation he had with one of horse racing's iconic riders still resonates with Stevens as he gets ready to ride Oxbow in Saturday's 138th Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course . Given where Stevens has been - including retirement for seven years - it seems almost humorous.

The colt was a knucklehead, really. He had speed and endurance in his pedigree, but if you had polled his owners and his trainer a year ago, none would have predicted that he'd gallop in the same steps as his great-grandsire, 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew. When the gates dropped on his first race, Orb did not even break. Second race? Same thing. He did not win until the fourth and final race of his two-year-old campaign. But where other colts might level off or become erratic, Orb seemed to get better every day. “I've never seen anything like it,” said his trainer, Claude “Shug” McGaughey, who has been in the thoroughbred game more than 40 years.

For Frank Carulli, it's not just a cliche anymore. He really is going to be living the dream in a few weeks. The longtime Maryland Jockey Club handicapper and race analyst is working his final Preakness on Saturday and will finish out the spring meet at Pimlico Race Course before packing up his speed charts and moving to ... well, where else? Las Vegas. That's not breaking news, since his pending departure was announced in March to give the casinos on the Strip a chance to build up their cash reserves, but it still calls for further elaboration.

The day after riding in the Kentucky Derby, Kevin Krigger packed his family and gear and headed for Pimlico Race Course - by way of Cincinnati. A woman there had captured his heart. She was Liliane Casey, 88, whose father, Jimmy Winkfield, was the last black jockey to win the Derby, or any Triple Crown race, in 1902. "I had to meet her," said Krigger, 29, who chatted with Casey in the living room of her apartment for nearly 2 1/2 hours. "We had a great time. She educated me as to what her father had gone through in racing.

Behind a door just off the paddock area of Pimlico Race Course , several jockeys are prepping for the day's races. They're handicapping the competition, comparing notes on horses and, in at least one case, going through a yoga sequence: reaching back to pull one leg high overhead in the Dancer's Pose, touching nose to knee for the Pyramid. Perhaps this is also happening in the men's locker room, but there's decidedly more stretching space here where the female jockeys suit up, shower and await their calls to the track.

Jerry Bailey can look back on a Hall of Fame jockey career that featured 5,892 victories but also the searing memory of 17 fractures, including a broken back, jaw and collarbone, and several busted ribs. Yet Bailey considers himself lucky. He never sustained an injury that kept him off the track more than several months. And unlike many jockeys, he could afford disability insurance designed to fill the gap between what riders need after life-altering accidents and what they receive from racetrack policies.

First things first: Grantland has a terrific look-back at Hunter S. Thompson's "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved. " I always start the Derby primer with a link to this story -- and by always, I mean I also did it last year -- and this adds even more context to how the story came about. A very popular question I receive from fellow Baltimoreans upon my return to our fair city by the bay is: How does the Derby compare to Preakness? The answer I ended up giving usually went something like this: The Preakness debauchery seems to be compressed into one day and in one spot, the infield, where once upon a time people ran across the portable toilets for sport.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Baltimore lawyer Frank Morgan helped swimmer Michael Phelps , then 16 years old, select Peter Carlisle as his agent. Phelps was years away from stardom, but Carlisle aggressively marketed his client, hoping to eventually elevate him beyond the confines of an Olympic sport that mattered to a broad audience only every four years. Earlier this year, Carlisle signed another client - at the suggestion of Morgan - and put her on the Phelps plan. He's already signed a deal for jockey Rosie Napravnik to endorse Snickers - an agreement proposed before Carlisle learned that the candy bar was named for a horse - and has another in the works that could be announced before Preakness.

On the third Saturday in May, generations of Baltimoreans marched onto the infield at Pimlico Race Course with their coolers in tow, an image that helped define the Preakness Stakes. No longer. The Maryland Jockey Club has unveiled enhanced security plans for the 138th Preakness Stakes in the wake of recent deadly bombings at the Boston Marathon. And coolers are among the casualties. Fans will be subject to electronic wand searches at all gates for the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes on May 17 and the Preakness on May 18. They will not be allowed to carry backpacks or duffel bags into the races and only smaller, see-through-plastic containers will be permitted.