Pimlico

The start of the Pimlico season used to be an upbeat time on the Maryland racing calendar. Fans and horsemen welcomed a change of scene after many cold months at Laurel and looked forward to the state's biggest events, the Preakness and Pimlico Special. Stables that spent the winter in warmer climates were returning home, so the fields became larger and the races more competitive.

A thoroughbred was electrocuted and his exercise rider hospitalized in a bizarre mishap Thursday morning in the auxiliary starting gate at Pimlico Race Course. Fox Brush, a 3-year-old gelding, was killed inside a stall within the steel-framed gate when a cable from an electrical supply source came in contact with the rained-on gate, charging it with high voltage, according to preliminary reports.

The tentacles of Frank Stronach's far-reaching horse racing combine have extended into Maryland, where Magna Entertainment's majority purchase of Pimlico and another track gives the Canadian-based company control of the Preakness, the middle jewel in the Triple Crown. Stronach, one of a dwindling number of industry leaders still bullish about live racing, has been rapidly buying tracks since his first purchase, Santa Anita in December 1998.

It was 10:40 Wednesday morning at Pimlico Race Track, and a 71-year-old man in blue jeans and a white cowboy hat was in hog heaven. Had there been a puddle of mud nearby, he'd have rolled around in it. Darrell Wayne Lukas, D. Wayne to his friends and several million horse race fans, is back at the Preakness, where he loves and is loved. After years of working out of Santa Anita, he lives in Louisville, Ky., now and uses that as his horse-training headquarters.

Saturday's Pimlico Special is R-rated. One of the contenders has a name so risque that some track announcers and sportscasters deliberately mispronounce it to avoid offending their listeners. The staid Jockey Club, which approves the names for all U.S. thoroughbreds, is chagrined. "This is a name," said a spokesman, "that we would prefer not to be in active use." Even the mother of owner Mike Pegram is shocked. "You named a horse WHAT?" she asked her son.

Tiznow, the 2000 horse of the year and this year's Santa Anita Handicap winner, won't run in the $750,000 Pimlico Special on May 12, trainer Jay Robbins said Sunday. Robbins said that Tiznow didn't come out of his workout Friday at Santa Anita in good order and would undergo a nuclear scan today to determine the problem. "He wasn't right in the hind end," Robbins said. "He was trying to tie up [cramp]. It reminded me of the same problem he had when he was a 2-year-old."

Boldest Blade took the lead entering the stretch and defeated Silly Baeder by 1 1/4 lengths in Tuesday's $18,000 Farest Nan Purse at Pimlico Race Course. The winner, ridden by Gregg McCarron, ran 1 1/16 miles in 1:45 2/5 and paid $27.60.

Quarantines on barns at Pimlico Race Course could start to be lifted next week, a state veterinarian said Friday. An outbreak of equine herpes prompted the quarantine at Pimlico, where three horses have been euthanized, and led several states to ban the shipment of horses into or from Maryland. Since the new year, 11 horses at Pimlico have tested positive for the virus. Besides the three euthanized horses, eight horses are currently in isolation.

The man arrested for running onto the track as thoroughbreds raced down the stretch a race before this year's Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of reckless endangerment. Prosecutors said they are recommending a three-year suspended sentence for Lee Ferrell and five years probation. The incident occurred three races before the nationally televised Preakness Stakes on May 15. Ferrell, 22, has said he does not remember the incident.

Maybe it's just 3-year-olds that hold bad luck for Nick Zito at Pimlico in Baltimore. Older horses, now, that's another matter. Zito, who has saddled five horses who have failed to win the Preakness, had his second Pimlico Special winner in three tries Saturday when Pat Day rode Star Standard to a three-quarter-length victory over Key Of Luck in the $582,000 race.