Preakness

In yesterday's Maryland Live, admission to the Coca-Cola Preakness Fun Festival in Patterson Park today through tomorrow was incorrectly listed. Admission is free.+ The Sun regrets the errors.And the race is on!No, no, not the Preakness Stakes. That's not until May 15. We mean the race to include as many events as ,x possible in the 1993 Maryland Preakness Celebration.Beginning today, a familiar schedule of community festivals, balloon races, rock concerts, fireworks displays and the Triple Crown Ball builds toward next weekend's 118th running of the second jewel in thoroughbred racing's Triple Crown at Pimlico Race Course.

Baltimore Baby! I was so proud how the Maryland Jockey Club had fixed up Pimlico for the Preakness. Every building, every railing and sign - all were freshly painted with magnificent yellow flowers everywhere! Baltimore is first class! Jim Holechek, Baltimore

In the middle of the infield at Preakness 2012, there are six long horizontal blackboards filled with scribbles of neon chalk. The randomness of the grafitti is appropriately light-hearted and innocuous. There's school pride (West Virginia, Virginia Tech and Ball So Hard) and shout-outs to friends who likely won't see them. And in 2012, it's just not a party without a scrawling of YOLO on the wall.

By now you've surely seen the video, below, of Tom Brady getting super, duper excited about Orb winning the Kentucky Derby. In it, he runs over to congratulate Ogden Phipps II, son of co-owner Ogden Mills "Dinny" Phipps. I'm not sure how they know each other. Maybe Brady just really revels in the good fortune of other fantastically rich people. Also, he apparently bet $4,700 on the colt and won $25,000 . (In some versions of the video you can see the other co-owner, Maryland resident Stuart Janney, roam through the shot in a tan rain coat and Orb hat, looking for all the world like maybe he'd mistakenly arrived in that place at that time.

The Maryland Jockey Club unveiled Wednesday the logo for the 2011 Preakness, set for May 21at Pimlico, according to a news release. For the 12th consecutive year, the Leffler Agency of Baltimore and Tampa designed the official Preakness logo. The logo features a horse and jockey with overlapping, tapering streamers. The colors used, red, black and gold, are the colors of the Maryland flag. "The Preakness logo creation is a highlight of the year for us at Leffler and has been since 2000," said Leffler Agency president Bob Leffler, according to the news release.

Finally, someone had the courage to call the ads for the Preakness just what they really are … "an embarrassment." I'm referring to Kevin Cowherd's "Get Your Preak On': From sport of kings to royal embarrassment," May 10. After hearing another one of these objectionable "Preak On" ads over the weekend, I thought: Just how low will the Maryland Jockey Club, and others, go to earn a buck? How sad that this ad represents not only Baltimore, but all of Maryland. The only word I can think of is DEGRADING!

There needs to be a wider vision for the proposed slots parlor on Russell Street. Moving the Preakness to a new world-class facility in the Camden-Carroll industrial park would reinforce the slots parlor opposite Russell Street and feed off the success of Camden Yards. Also, adjacent to the site is the mouth of the Gwynns Falls that empties into Ridgley's Cove. This presents an opportunity to restore a natural landscape feature and demonstrate Baltimore's leadership in environment and recycling.

I wondered why I wasn't seeing more restaurants in Baltimore offering Preakness promotions. It's simple, really. They don't have to. Add commencement exercises at Notre Dame and Loyola into the mid-May mix, and you've got a pretty sweet weekend for the hospitality industry. Hotels are booked heavily (but not fully) this weekend, and restaurant reservation books are bulging -- The Preakness is the kind of event where visitors make reservations at the same places year after year. (If you want to rub shoulders with racing insiders after the race, by the way, Aldo's in Little Italy has evolved into the race's unofficial post-race 19th hole, a destination for the visiting media, trainers, jockeys and other insiders.)

This is the year the Preakness got the beer right! At least that’s what infield revelers seem to be saying. Trying to curb alcohol use (or abuse) led to banning the bring-your-own and replacing it with buy-your-own. That ended the parade of beer-filled coolers streaming into the infield, but long lines at beer stands made chugging difficult, even with the bottomless cup.  But Kellie Dickerson, 35, proclaimed this year a success. She came to Baltimore from Virginia Beach, her first Preakness, and said the lines were quick and the beer plentiful.

While many of the people in the infield were interested in the horses, or in other exploits,  Amanda Gregory of Arlington Va., was distracted by a white whale. Instead of reading a racing form, Gregory, 30, was sprawled on a blanket with two girlfriends, deeply immersed in reading Moby Dick.  Gregory said she is “long out of class” and was reading the book purely for pleasure. “I think I know how it turns out,” he said. “It doesn’t seem like anything is going to happen for another 500 pages.”  She said she hasn’t been paying much attention to the undercard – the preliminary races – but was waiting for the Preakness.