Year S Preakness

Coming back to Pimlico Race Course on Friday was a lot different for Edgar Prado than it had been at any time during the eight years since he left for New York after a decade in Baltimore. Leaving would be a lot easier than it was after his last visit. A year after he experienced the sickening feeling of Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro breaking down beneath him in the Preakness, Prado returned to a familiar place and a familiar track with hopes of exorcising any remaining ghosts. "It's been a year, so many things going on, so many races to ride, you have to move on," Prado said yesterday in the jockeys' room a couple of hours before the Preakness.

EVERYTHING WAS in place to erase the scorched memories of last year's Preakness, when the power went out. This time, the weather was perfect, a record crowd turned out, and electricity filled the air as well as the circuitry. The afternoon offered hope and just enough suspense that Charismatic could match his surprise win in the Kentucky Derby for a chance at horse racing's rare Triple Crown.Then, three races before the 124th Preakness stakes, a man stole onto the track and struck a menacing pose as four tons of horse flesh rushed toward him.Among the thoughts likely racing through the mind of Joseph A. De Francis at that moment: Why me?

A story in yesterday's editions incorrectly reported price increases for several categories of tickets for next year's Preakness. The Sun regrets the error. Here are the correct prices:Seat location .......1996 .......1997Infield advance .....$17 .........$20Inf. Preakness day ..$20 .........$25Sports Pal. reserve .$145 ..... .$150Grand. upper reserve $55 ....... .$60Grand. upper box ....$120 .......$130Grand. lower box ....$130 .......$150Grand. concourse ....$40 .........$45Pub Date: 12/12/97

It started small. It got monumental. Now, although not exactly "small," it has changed once again. Yet, it's still the Preakness Celebration, and it kicks off in all of its glory tomorrow.Although the budget for this year's Preakness Celebration, which runs through May 18, is $300,000 compared with last year's $775,000, acting executive director Terry Romanoli rejects the notion that the festivities were "scaled back.""I have seen the term 'scaled back' used in the media, but it is not," she says.

Vowing that they have learned their lesson, organizers of the 1996 Preakness Celebration today will unveil a scaled-back version of the festival preceding the fabled thoroughbred race, cutting the budget by more than half and dropping two big events that left last year's celebration almost $1 million in debt."

A couple of hours after Saturday's 121st running of the Preakness, in the shedrow of the Pimlico stakes barn, Pat Day sneaked up to D. Wayne Lukas and grabbed him from behind.As Lukas recalled yesterday morning, Day said: "Throw me a bone."Lukas replied: "How about a filet mignon?"And so the Day-Lukas controversy, the story line of this year's Preakness -- the jockey and the trainer who spurned him -- concluded on an amiable note. Day will ride for Lukas again, and Lukas will continue to praise the Hall of Fame rider, as he did yesterday.

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.

Woefully behind in ticket sales four days before a planned music extravaganza at the Inner Harbor, staffers at Maryland Preakness Celebration Inc. urged their boss to scale back the event.Instead, executive director Donna Leonard ordered a $30,000, tractor-trailer-sized television screen to make the performers appear larger than life -- for a crowd that never materialized.The episode was typical of how Ms. Leonard repeatedly ignored warnings as she pushed the nonprofit corporation deeply into debt by dramatically overspending its budget for this year's Preakness Week activities, according to Preakness Celebration board members, staff and creditors.

Trainer Nick Zito had some somber news when he arrived at Pimlico with his Preakness starter, Star Standard. Zito's 1994 Kentucky Derby winner, Go For Gin, who was runner-up to Tabasco Cat in last year's Preakness, has been retired.The 4-year-old son of Cormorant suffered "a tear in his tendon sheath," Zito said. The injury occurred Monday during a workout at Belmont Park in preparation for the May 29 Metropolitan Mile.Go For Gin last raced on Derby Day when he was third in the Churchill Downs Handicap.

Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke said yesterday he will withhold the city's contribution to the financially troubled Preakness Celebration until the nonprofit group deals with its $1 million deficit.Preakness Celebration Inc.'s executive director, Donna Leonard, was suspended without pay this month for overspending her $750,000 budget by nearly $1 million. The state attorney general's office has launched an investigation into how the debt was incurred.Mr. Schmoke said he ordered that the $75,000 the city contributes to Preakness Celebration, which made up 10 percent of the group's budget this year, be held up for now."

On the morning after the Preakness Stakes, Pimlico Race Course typically is home to a long-standing ritual: a huge cleanup effort to pick up thousands of empty beer cans, food waste and discarded clothing left behind by drunken infield revelers. But not this year. Thanks to the new ban on bring-your-own alcohol, this year's Preakness may be remembered - at least by the people who work the event - as the first in memory where they didn't have a foul stew of booze and other detritus to sweep away the day after the festivities.

Despite the building anticipation of a classic horse race with a compelling story line, this year's Preakness comes with a triple whammy of potential party poopers. If the economy were not enough to dampen the festivities - and it is - there's also the bankruptcy of Pimlico Race Course's owner and the resulting questions over the race's future. Then there's that beer thing - a newly adopted ban on bringing your own brew to the infield that many former Preakness fans find as palatable as a warm Natty Boh. Maryland Jockey Club president Tom Chuckas said ticket sales are picking up after a slow start, particularly since star filly Rachel Alexandra entered the field of challengers to Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird.

Coming back to Pimlico Race Course on Friday was a lot different for Edgar Prado than it had been at any time during the eight years since he left for New York after a decade in Baltimore. Leaving would be a lot easier than it was after his last visit. A year after he experienced the sickening feeling of Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro breaking down beneath him in the Preakness, Prado returned to a familiar place and a familiar track with hopes of exorcising any remaining ghosts. "It's been a year, so many things going on, so many races to ride, you have to move on," Prado said yesterday in the jockeys' room a couple of hours before the Preakness.

Baltimore will get a double dose of zydeco this month with the 20th annual Preakness Celebration. The Southern party act Buckwheat Zydeco will headline this year's Preakness eve concert, and local zydeco/funk outfit the Crawdaddies will open the show, officials announced yesterday. Accordionist Stanley "Buckwheat" Dural and his band will play a free outdoor show at 6 p.m. May 18 in Harbor East. The Crawdaddies will perform there and also at Belvedere Square at 6 p.m. May 11. Both concerts are part of a week of Preakness Celebration events that starts May 11 and ends with the running of the 132nd Preakness Stakes on May 19. Other Preakness Celebration events include the parade, frog hop, crab derby and balloon festival.

The sun was blazing hot, the air was thick and humid, and the infield, as usual, was good and rowdy yesterday at the 129th Preakness. The steamy weather was in stark contrast to last year's race, a cold and rainy affair that helped keep the fans and the horses cool. But this year's Preakness, which had a record crowd of 112,668 at Pimlico Race Course, forced fans to find creative ways to beat the heat. Fans in the infield dumped coolers on each other as if they'd just won the Super Bowl, and plenty of party-goers lounged in inflatable swimming pools filled with ice water and cold beer.

At first glance, nothing about the Woodlawn Vase -- the shiny silver trophy presented annually to the winner of the Preakness -- seems to embody the thrill of the race. Where in its delicate, ornate features are the galloping, straining horses? Where are the bulging muscles, flaring nostrils and glistening coats? Where are the hysterical crowds? At a glance, the trophy hints at little more than that triumphant Kodak moment in which the victor raises the cup for the crowds to cheer and the cameras to flash.

With a week to go until post time, Baltimore began the countdown to the 127th Preakness Stakes yesterday with a parade streaming through downtown and hot-air balloons hovering in the sky. The horse race itself seemed hardly to matter, except as it offered a grand backdrop to a sun-soaked day of activities that included 5K and 10K races and bands at Rash Field at the Inner Harbor. "I'm a parade fan, just a little bit of a racing fan," said Carolyn Mitchell of Severn, one of hundreds who lined Pratt Street for a glimpse of marching bands, step groups and Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, the Preakness Parade's grand marshal.

EVERYTHING WAS in place to erase the scorched memories of last year's Preakness, when the power went out. This time, the weather was perfect, a record crowd turned out, and electricity filled the air as well as the circuitry. The afternoon offered hope and just enough suspense that Charismatic could match his surprise win in the Kentucky Derby for a chance at horse racing's rare Triple Crown.Then, three races before the 124th Preakness stakes, a man stole onto the track and struck a menacing pose as four tons of horse flesh rushed toward him.Among the thoughts likely racing through the mind of Joseph A. De Francis at that moment: Why me?

A story in yesterday's editions incorrectly reported price increases for several categories of tickets for next year's Preakness. The Sun regrets the error. Here are the correct prices:Seat location .......1996 .......1997Infield advance .....$17 .........$20Inf. Preakness day ..$20 .........$25Sports Pal. reserve .$145 ..... .$150Grand. upper reserve $55 ....... .$60Grand. upper box ....$120 .......$130Grand. lower box ....$130 .......$150Grand. concourse ....$40 .........$45Pub Date: 12/12/97

A couple of hours after Saturday's 121st running of the Preakness, in the shedrow of the Pimlico stakes barn, Pat Day sneaked up to D. Wayne Lukas and grabbed him from behind.As Lukas recalled yesterday morning, Day said: "Throw me a bone."Lukas replied: "How about a filet mignon?"And so the Day-Lukas controversy, the story line of this year's Preakness -- the jockey and the trainer who spurned him -- concluded on an amiable note. Day will ride for Lukas again, and Lukas will continue to praise the Hall of Fame rider, as he did yesterday.