Pimlico Thoughts

[jnunan4759]

I was thinking about Baltimore saying how they need the Preakness. Looking at it, sure they do. Just some thoughts.

Pimlico runs 28 days now and is owned and run by a private company. They pay Real Estate taxes all year and all people who work there pay city wage taxes. I'm sure all food and beverage, as in most cities in the NE, have city excise taxes. The Preakness brings in close to 200,000 people when you consider everybody. They all get hotels, eat and often party. Taxes and economy.

Huge boom. They probably provide some police for the Preakness, but I'm sure the get paid. I'm sure they get charged for the water and sewer they use. Also think of the merchants who supply the event. The food, the drinks, the gas to cook with. The napkins ? How many napkins ? Got to be 2 million.

So lets keep the Preakness in Baltimore, in an old place that you own.

The football team moved out and in order to get a new one the city paid $200 million to build a new stadium. To keep the Orioles from leaving they build Camden Yards for $100 million years ago.

The Preakness alone draws about 40% of the fans the Ravens draw in a season. Many Ravens fans commute and the Preakness draws from out of town, using hotels, flights, rental cars, restaurants. Plus tourism (aquarium, Inner Harbor).

For the rest of the meet, I'm sure Baltimore whacks horsemen with a city tax on purses also (at least 4% added to federal and state). They all do it with athletes.

I see the history, but not economics. This is going to be an interesting issue.

Just my thoughts on an issue that is more complex than people think.

[tanner12oz]

ive been going 13 years now..so ive got some experience. couple takeaways from this year.

the friendliness of staff was great this year. everyone greeted you, thanked you for coming etc etc..great in this area. the bathrooms remained functioning all day which has been a problem in years past. they did do some painting which made things look a little better.

negatives

people seemed WAAAAY drunker and more obnoxious then usual. lots of underage drinking..people being waaaaay overserved. no security whatsoever to prevent infielders from wandering into the front row of the apron, whipping out there weiner and publically urinating on the track (yes this happened). ran out of ALOT of food...MTA shuttle leaving was a mess...sat in traffic for 45 mins to simply circle the track. use to board the busses heading in the right direction and down the hill to the highway you went. now you gotta circle the track which is asinine. could have used some additional police and medical staff..saw a guy collapse having a seizure outside and you couldn't get any trained help into the area. guy luckily came around 15-20 mins later but I never saw any medical staff even though numerous 911 calls were made and police requested help. saw lots of people with various injuries being attended too throughout the day...not to be a party pooper but this all stems from excessive boozing..someone is going to get killed one of these years unless they cut down on some of the drinking. at this point I wouldn't recommend anyone taking a date, there mother or children to the Preakness.

all in all it was probably a little less fun then ive had in the past..tickets and parking continue to go up every year as well. will be in attendance next year of course but for sure theres room for improvement.

[Pants II]

I.....


:

[jnunan4759]

Wow, I had heard it got better. I stopped going years ago because it was scary for my wife.

Your exit and security and medical notes show the difficulties they have.

More issues than meet the eye.

[saratogadew]

Originally Posted by tanner12oz

ive been going 13 years now..so ive got some experience. couple takeaways from this year.

the friendliness of staff was great this year. everyone greeted you, thanked you for coming etc etc..great in this area. the bathrooms remained functioning all day which has been a problem in years past. they did do some painting which made things look a little better.

negatives

people seemed WAAAAY drunker and more obnoxious then usual. lots of underage drinking..people being waaaaay overserved. no security whatsoever to prevent infielders from wandering into the front row of the apron, whipping out there weiner and publically urinating on the track (yes this happened). ran out of ALOT of food...MTA shuttle leaving was a mess...sat in traffic for 45 mins to simply circle the track. use to board the busses heading in the right direction and down the hill to the highway you went. now you gotta circle the track which is asinine. could have used some additional police and medical staff..saw a guy collapse having a seizure outside and you couldn't get any trained help into the area. guy luckily came around 15-20 mins later but I never saw any medical staff even though numerous 911 calls were made and police requested help. saw lots of people with various injuries being attended too throughout the day...not to be a party pooper but this all stems from excessive boozing..someone is going to get killed one of these years unless they cut down on some of the drinking. at this point I wouldn't recommend anyone taking a date, there mother or children to the Preakness.

all in all it was probably a little less fun then ive had in the past..tickets and parking continue to go up every year as well. will be in attendance next year of course but for sure theres room for improvement.

Down at the far end of the grandstand, people were great. I didn't witness any bad or drunkin behavior at all. The lines for the tellers, drinks, bathrooms were great all day. This year my brother and I decided to get the BMore bus package from Mothers grill in Federal Hill. (Never again). Buses left Mothers at 9am and we were in Lot #4 by 9:30. Beautiful. After the Preakness we huffed it back out to lot 4 and got on the bus. First of all, the bus was blocked in by about 100 other buses and looked like a 2 hour wait to get out. Half the people were passed out on the bus. It was a 90 degree steam bath in there that smelled like puke. After 2 minutes on there my brother said "Chris, we're getting the f*** off of this bus now! We walked back out to Northern Blvd, held up a fifty, and were in a car heading back to inner harbor. Enjoying crabs at Peter's Pour House 45 minutes later. Had a blast and can't wait to do it again next year. Preakness never disappoints!!!

[richard burch]

never there but I would imagine the construction of a small city in the infield must make it impossible to see the race from the ground.

I don't like seeing it on the tube. Seems like the race is second to the party.