Kat’s Eye: Buzzing in Baltimore Before Preakness

It’s been two weeks since Victor Espinoza became only the sixth jockey to win back-to-back Kentucky Derbys — last year on California Chrome and this year aboard American Pharoah — and his picture is everywhere. 
Without being able to fully appreciate just how busy his life has been, I was still surprised when my phone rang on Tuesday and it was Victor, asking me if I was coming to Baltimore for the middle jewel of the Triple Crown - the Preakness Stakes.
Victor was “driving to this thing,” but told me that he would arrive at Pimlico Race Course on Thursday morning and suggested that I come up to the jockey lounge again and hang out. “It’ll be fun.”  (The “thing” he was driving to, I later discovered, was an appearance on ESPN and then on to the Los Angeles Dodgers game, where he threw out the first pitch.)
I arrived at the track on Friday morning, catching a ride with my friends Matt and Courtney Smoot, who know their way around the Maryland racing scene with close to a decade of owning and racing Thoroughbreds. Things were still relatively quiet, with a couple of hours until the first race, but anything would seem calm compared with the festival of hats and characters I had encountered at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May.
I sent Victor a text message, letting him know I had arrived, then found my way to the press box for my credentials and a quick chat to catch up with my friend Joan Lawrence, from the NTRA. The press room was already buzzing, with tables lining the room and each person’s name printed on yellow tape to indicate their assigned work station.
Credentials in hand, I made my way back to where my friends were sitting — on the rail in the Clubhouse boxes, just past the finish line. While I got my bearings, I kept checking my phone to see if Victor had responded and was puzzled that I still had not heard from him as the time for his first race approached.
As the fifth race was completed, my friend Matt showed me the entrance to the jockey lounge, just inside the paddock, and we made our way up the narrowest staircase I’ve ever navigated. At the top of the stairs, there was my friend, astride the Equicizer, warming up for his race. His face immediately registered his understanding that he had forgotten to reply to my messages as he flung open his arms to give me a hug.

After briefly chiding him for forgetting about me, I wished him a safe day and sent him back to work while Matt and I chatted and took in the scene. When the jockeys for the sixth race started filing down the narrow staircase, the security guard at the top of the stairs stopped all other foot traffic, just in case a jock had forgotten something and had to run back up the stairs.  As Victor started down the stairs, he gave us a quick thumbs-up before disappearing from sight.

Pimlico has a really interesting, indoor paddock, so no one was allowed down the stairs until all the horses had made their way onto the track. When we were allowed to, we headed down the stairs and out to the track, where I found a spot on the deck outside the jockeys’ room. It was a beautiful vantage point to watch the race and chat with jocks as they waited for their next race.

Unfortunately, Victor and his mount did not finish well, but everyone came back safe, although a little dirty from running behind other horses.  And while his next two races brought similar results, I was able to capture a nice shot of 9-year-old Ben’s Cat — a crowd favorite — as he won the Jim McKay Turf Sprint Stakes.

Later in the day, Victor rallied aboard Cat Burglar in the 14th race to finish third.  Any day that horses and jockeys go home healthy is a good day in Thoroughbred racing, but I’m looking forward to a fun and interesting Preakness day.