Pimlico Race

An article yesterday in The Sun about Preakness Celebration '95 incorrectly named one of the performers scheduled to appear at a country music festival at Oregon Ridge Park. The singer is Martina McBride.The Sun regrets the errors.A three-day country music festival in Baltimore County, a two-day jazz festival in Baltimore City and a "funky, hip MTV nightclub" on the Inner Harbor -- complete with singer Debbie Harry -- will highlight the Preakness Celebration this year, officials announced yesterday.

For $3 a person, you can use the bathroom of Carol Hines' home on Winner St, across from Pimlico race course.  Hines decided to give entrepreneurship a try for the first time this year, one of many enterprises that pop up on Preakness day in the Park Heights and Pimlico neighborhoods.  Besides offering her restroom for Preakness attendees, Hines cooked up some of her best dishes, including jerk chicken, curry chicken and barbecue ribs. ...

RACE AT A GLANCE: Field for middle jewel of racing's Triple Crown nearly complete: Olympio, Strike the Gold, Best Pal, Bashful, Dopey, Grumpy, Sneezy and Doc.TODAY'S PROFILE: Hansel. Although the favorite, Hansel finished 10th in Kentucky Derby, leading to speculation race was "fixed" in bizarre pact with blood sister Gretel, currently on lam from authorities. Incredibly slow horse is expected to finish Saturday's race sometime Sunday afternoon.HEARD AROUND THE BARNS: Jockey Chris McCarron ballooned to 117 pounds before diet of mustard greens and tap water got weight down to more manageable 115. McCarron also chided by local truant officer for "not being in school like the other seventh-graders."

Rachel Alexandra changed stalls at Churchill Downs in Louisville early Thursday morning, and the reverberations blew through the Preakness Stakes posthaste. No sooner had Stonestreet Stables purchased the precocious 3-year-old filly than new owner Jess Jackson was fielding questions about a possible run at the $1 million Preakness on May 16. Jackson was noncommittal after moving Rachel Alexandra into trainer Steve Asmussen's barn. The ambiguity left Chip Woolley, trainer for the Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird, wondering whether he needed a jockey for the second leg of the Triple Crown.

After days of shifting back and forth on whether Lawyer Ron would be able to compete in the Preakness on May 20, trainer Bob Holthus made it clear yesterday that his horse won't be running. The loss of Lawyer Ron brings the confirmed Preakness field to six: Barbaro, Sweetnorthernsaint, Brother Derek, Like Now, Bernardini and Hemingway's Key. At Fair Hill, where Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro lives, trainer Michael Matz said he has no clear idea what the competition will be for his horse and therefore is not worrying about it. He also said he is not yet sure when next week the horse will ship to Pimlico Race Course.

Whatever your betting tastes, local racetracks seem to offer it on their Memorial Day weekend cards.A quick survey of seven area tracks -- four flat, two harness and one steeplechase -- shows that in the next three days, 172 races will be run at four Maryland tracks and one each in Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.There will be 155 live races, programmed for about 1,000 horses in this area, plus 17 simulcasts of stakes events from New York, California, Illinois, Kentucky and Massachusetts.

The team of owner Sondra Bender and trainer Larry Murray won its fifth stakes race of the year in Maryland as Cruise Along beat nine other Maryland-bred fillies and mares in the $75,000 All Brandy Stakes at Pimlico Race Course. It was the first added-money race of the five-week summer-fall meeting. Cruise Along and jockey Horacio Karamanos covered the nine furlongs in 1 minute, 51.39 seconds over a firm turf course. The Runaway Groom mare was unhurried early until Karamanos swung her wide at the top of the stretch and won by 1 1/2 lengths.

THE Preakness Stakes is more than just a horse race. It is a weeklong celebration in Baltimore, one that not only provides a variety of entertainment but also turns into a $51 million payoff for the city.Even before as many as 14 thoroughbreds reach the starting gate for the 124th running of the Preakness on Saturday, the city will have benefited from a flurry of pre-race activities worth an estimated $26.8 million to the local economy.Preakness Day itself, with a throng of perhaps 100,000 fans at Pimlico Race Course, should contribute another $24.4 million to this city's economy.

Saratoga Games proved his versatility again yesterday, pulling away in the stretch and breezing to an 8 3/4 -length victory over Ronnie's Hot Rod in the $75,000 Honor Guard Stakes, the Memorial Day feature at Pimlico Race Course. "I thought when he went longer, he'd be even better," said jockey Mario Pino. "Today he faced tough competition and moved up another notch." The winning time for 1 1/8 miles on the main track was 1:49 2/5 in the third race of the program, moved off a turf course that was softened by persistent rainfall.

For starters, I want to go on record as having made a sports department pronouncement that the state should consider using the stadium authority to fix the problems in Maryland's rapidly deteriorating horse racing industry days before state Senate President Mike Miller publicly revived the "supertrack" concept. Unfortunately, throwing taxpayer money at something seemingly as frivolous as horse racing is a tough sell these days, considering the broad sentiment against public bailouts. But the idea of the state acquiring Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course along with the Preakness Stakes and embarking on a supertrack project in the longer term would be a prudent and far-sighted use of public dollars.