She said what? He did what?
Laugh along with us and fellow Preakness goers by sharing your favorite overheard quotes or funny photos.
Simply email them to ohpreak@gmail.com and we’ll re-post them here.
What’s a Ridiculous Preakness without drinks? We thought you’d never ask.
Whether you prefer the traditional Black Eyed Susan, a modern remix, or some of Baltimore’s best bartenders’ own attempts at a signature Preakness drink, our mobile Preakness guide has you covered.
(Oh, there’s lots of other handy tips, too, for those going to the race as well as watching. If it takes drinks to get you in the door, so be it.)
Cheers!
In college we insisted the school had the grass painted to impress parents and visitors. As much as we did, the school insisted it didn’t.
At the Preakness, they really do paint plants. Though, for less vain reasons.
While their alcoholic namesake, many a reveler can attest, is the real deal, the Black-eyed Susan flowers draped over the winning horse are not.
They are daisies with their centers painted black.
Why? One, Black-eyed Susans aren’t in bloom in May, our own Susan, Susan Reimer, explained on her garden blog last year. Two, they are a wildflower too delicate to be woven into a blanket.
So, they paint them black. Hundreds of them.
Before there was an app for everything, there was a Geocities page. And, thanks to the Internet Archive, many are still around, even though Yahoo shut down the pioneering self-publishing community in 2009.
One we’re especially grateful was cataloged is this Preakness party planning site, complete with green-bold-italic Comic Sans, swaying Black-eyed Susan GIFs and a Midi rendition of “Maryland, My Maryland.”
Don’t be too distracted by all the flowers, though. (There are A LOT.) The author throws a classy party. Who can help us curl ribbon for the flatware settings?
To beat the heat at Preakness, he’s uncharacteristically wearing a white T-shirt. Do you see him?
Affixed on the calendar on the third Saturday in May, the Preakness itself is a day full of rituals: From wearing flamboyant hats, to painting the weather vane the winner’s colors, to yes, running along the tops of portable toilets.
But, for bettors, race participants (and, we’d wager, cornhole participants as well) there are also less public observances. To deal with the uncertainty even all the preparation in the world leaves behind, they have superstitions.
The ones stakeholders were willing to disclose in a 2010 Sun article are eccentric enough. We can only guess about those they insist on keeping private, as a Preakness-winning jockey said is customary among riders.
There is the trainer who habitually avoids the color red. There is the longtime Pimlico barber — himself an admittedly poor handicapper — whose customers return to get “lucky” haircuts. There is the bettor who plays horses’ numbers coinciding with the birthday of his American Eskimo dog who died 14 years ago.
Experts say horse racing is a magnet for superstition because, like life, it is so uncertain.
Have your own Preakness superstitions? Let us know. (Especially cornhole players. We’re looking for an edge this year.)
| — | Mike Bauman, 22, who came from St. Joseph, Mich., to meet up with some of his University of Michigan buddies at Preakness 2011 |
Who says comedy is hard? Without even trying, you contributed the below gems to last year’s Overheard at the Preakness feature and made us LOL several times. Yeah, that was us. (Someone at the betting windows told us we have a “horse laugh.” Not sure whether that was a joke.)
Awkward laugh and all, we’ll have our ears open again May 19. But, Preakness-goers have more than 100,000 mouths.
On race day, help make sure we don’t miss something funny, strange, classic — perhaps even legendary — by sending it to this blog. To do so, simply email the quote (and an illustrative picture, if you like) to ohpreak@gmail.com.
Like your teacher said: We all want to laugh, too.
As promised, here are some of last year’s highlights:
