Viewing a Piece of History – The Preakness

Saturday I sat in the chair in the living room with both boys in my lap yelling, “Go American Pharaoh” along with millions of other people across the country. It was definitely an amazing moment. I have never been a huge horse racing fan, I will admit I have always been more interested in the hats. 🙂 When my brother in law asked us if we wanted to come for a visit and go to the Preakness I was intrigued and immediately started planning my outfit. However, it ended up being so much more than just a chance to buy a hat. It was an adventure and ultimately I witnessed a piece of history.

It appears that the Derby is the primary hat parade, but are also welcome at the Preakness and Belmont Stakes. We decided to go all out! We headed up to the outlet mall north of Atlanta and had a blast picking out our “costumes.” I found a blue searsucker dress at the Brooks Brothers outlet and while the sale price made me cringe it was luckily an additional 40% thanks to Mothers Day weekend! I also grabbed these adorable horse shoe-esque earrings and a gold bracelet that reads “I Am A Searsucker For a Man In A Bow Tie” I could just die from all the cuteness. A pair of Cole Haan sandals from TJ Maxx polished off the outfit. Eric grabbed his coral plaid shirt and blue searsucker pants from the Vinyard Vines outlet and we all set. I was unable to find a fun hat, but I grabbed a straw hat from JCrew just in case I didn’t get a chance to find one.

Preakness Horse Race Fashion

Once we arrived in Baltimore and I saw my sister in laws beautiful hat I knew we were going to need to do a little more shopping! Early Saturday before we left for the races we headed down to the harbor and visited Hats in the Belfry at Fells Point. The hats were gorgeous! My husband picked this pink one out for me and I absolutely love it. He obviously has great taste! 😉 Hat Tip: If you are going to travel with your hat, get a hat box!! The boxes at Hats in the Belfry were expensive, but I noticed on their website that their shipping is cheap and free over $100. Then I could probably have just used the packaging it was shipped in.

Preakness Hat Horse Race Fashion

Eric was also able to find a bow tie here. Now that we were all decked out we grabbed a quick group selfie in front of the harbor, using my handy dandy selfie stick, and we were off to the races!!

Preakness Horse Race Fashion

The walk in to Pimlico was interesting to say the least. I have never been to Churchill Downs or Belmont Park but I can’t imagine it is encased in the urban, inner city atmosphere that we witnessed. We walked the streets of poverty dressed in our searsucker and lace and the irony was not lost on me. Since we parked on the back side of the race course near the entrance to the infield we had quite a walk and to be honest it felt like we were walking up to Bonaroo or maybe even the Daytona 500. I have heard stories of the infield at the Kentucky Derby and apparently the Preakness is no different. The lines were full of drunken sweaty kids and the races hadn’t even started yet. I started the day feeling so old.

Preakness_Pimlico

 

We quickly found our seats and were very happy to see that we were sitting inside, which proved very useful by the time the Preakness race rolled around. As it turns out the actual Preakness race is the 13th race out of 14 races held that day. It literally took us about 6 races of placing small bets before we were able to get the hang of it! This was my first bet, $1 on lucky #13 for Race 6. I lost this bet and every single bet I placed. Betting Tip: Check your program when you get there, they usually have a one page summary of how to bet. We didn’t find that until about Race 10. 🙂

Preakness Bet

We also partook in the popular Preakness libation, the Black Eyed Susan. They came in these adorable souvenir glasses which had listed every horse who ever one the Preakness. They were dangerously delicious!! I sucked down two very quickly, they didn’t taste like they had all that much alcohol in them. Boy was I wrong!

Preakness_Black Eyed Susan

We were also able to see the horses up close! Very cool!

Preakness_Horses

 

All in all we had a great time!

Preakness_Fashion

 

We were able to view a piece of history. American Pharaoh went on to win the Belmont Stakes making him the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years! 

We are hoping to make this an annual thing. It was really that much fun!!

Preakness_PostRace