Where is the preakness located
Why is it called The Preakness?
in the US the Triple Crown of
thoroughbred horse racing is no surprise
comprised of three races it starts with
the Kentucky Derby in Kentucky and ends
with the belmont stakes in Belmont Park
in elmont New York and in the middle
there is the Preakness Stakes it's not
held in a place called Preakness it's
held in Baltimore at the Pimlico Race
Course so where did that name come from
Preakness sounds like a way to describe
someone his Preakness surprised me well
as I imagine most traditions in the
world of horse racing start this one
starts with rich people drinking way
back in eighteen sixty eight then
Maryland governor Odin Bowie was up in
New York with a bunch of distinguished
guests for a dinner party and the dinner
party was apparently pretty good like
really good so good that some of the
folks there decided they should hold a
horse race in two years time to
commemorate just what a good party it
really was so you kids today don't know
how to party like they used to anyway
governor odin bowie agreed to build a
brand new horse racing track in
baltimore to host the race two years
later the doors opened at Pimlico Race
Track for the first ever dinner party
steaks and the winner of that race was a
horse named Preakness a couple of years
later the racing track decided to host
its first-ever spring race and Odin
Bowie recommended they named it after
the horse that won the race on the day
Pimlico opened so there's part of an
answer the preakness stakes are named
after a horse but that doesn't really
explain where that word came from so why
was the horse named Preakness well there
actually is a place called Preakness
it's an unincorporated community
basically a neighborhood in Wayne New
Jersey it's believed the name was just a
mispronunciation of a local Native
American tribes word propolis which
meant quail woods presumably because the
area had lots of quail and woods anyway
it was in this neighborhood that
Milton's Sanford ran the Preakness
stables you may remember Milton Sanford
is the guy who threw that really awesome
party way back at the beginning of this
video Sanford had purchased the
racehorse from a farm in Kentucky and
just named it after his stables
Preakness and Preakness won that first
race so there you go the preakness
stakes in American institution a horse
race held in Maryland named after a
horse from Kentucky that was named after
a neighborhood in New Jersey that itself
was named after a mispronunciation of
the Native American word for quail woods
and all that brought to you by what must
have been just the best dinner party
ever
I'm Jonathan Sobolewski for AOL com
