A mural of jockeys riding horses painted on the City of Laurel's Main Street, part of the city's preparation for the Preakness Stakes coming to town. (Photo by Akira Kyles/Capital News Service)
By Akira Kyles
As passersby stroll down Laurel’s Main Street, signs flap from sidewalk lamp posts, urging readers to “Thrive” and promising “Progress Through People,” while a banner highlighting the city’s upcoming farmers’ market or the Main Street Festival waves in the wind.
Yet in recent weeks, new signage featuring jockeys racing thoroughbreds adorn the windows of local storefronts with the slogan “Saddle Up, Laurel!”
The new slogan was launched by the city to commemorate the first-ever Preakness Stakes horse race held at Laurel Park Racecourse on Saturday. For more than 130 years, the Preakness has been held at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, but that track is being redeveloped, leading to the relocation of the second leg of the Triple Crown.
The “Saddle Up, Laurel!” slogan was described as a “citywide call to celebrate, participate and showcase the very best of Laurel,” according to a city news release.
The community created subcommittees to approach Preakness Stakes 151 celebrations as a collaborative effort, according to Christina Cornwell, director of the city’s Department of Emergency Management, one of the agencies tasked with planning for the event.
“This is kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the city of Laurel to engage in this type of event,” Cornwell said. “So, we tried to take advantage of everything that we could to highlight our local businesses and what Laurel is about in our community.”
Laurel Park gets its moment in the spotlight for a one-time, scaled-down Preakness
On May 2, the city’s Department of Economic and Community Development (ECD) launched two programs to highlight local businesses, in honor of the Preakness Stakes, according to Jay Meashey, the department’s director.
For one program, participating businesses will place stickers on a “Saddle Up, Laurel! Race Card” of visiting patrons. The other program, “Saddle Up, Laurel! Capture the Flag,” is a digital photo contest in which locals and visitors can submit photos of flags placed throughout the city.
Participants who complete the “Saddle Up, Laurel! Race Card” will receive a “swag bag” with city-branded or ECD-branded gear, like a plastic cup, pens, notepads or other giveaway items that might be found on the city’s table at Main Street Festival. Participants who complete both programs will be entered in a drawing to win a “grand prize,” according to Meashey.
“[The programs are] to generate some foot traffic at places that maybe aren’t on the radar of residents or tourists,” Meashey said.
Stewart Sinex, co-owner of 3 Gear Games, said he signed up for the “Saddle Up, Laurel! Race Card” program in an effort to try his “darndest” to support community initiatives.
3 Gear Games regularly hosts gaming sessions for popular live action role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons for its clientele, in addition to selling a variety of card, board and live-action role-playing games and accessories, as featured on the store’s website.
Sinex said he is uncertain and a little concerned about Laurel’s preparations for increased tourism due to Preakness, primarily regarding parking.
“We’re expecting to have so many people seeking parking that we would not be surprised if we end up getting our customers choked out during the [Preakness Stakes],” he said. “We hope that people wandering around will see us and come in and want drinks and concessions that we usually keep.”
This is kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the city of Laurel to engage in this type of event. So, we tried to take advantage of everything that we could to highlight our local businesses and what Laurel is about in our community.
– Christina Cornwell, director, Laurel Department of Emergency Management
Tiffany Johnson, owner of Coco&Soy Candle Company, said in addition to participating in the race card program, she will host a candle-making class Saturday for Preakness attendees who might want a break from the races.
Johnson said she believes the city can handle an influx of visitors, but it would take proper planning to maintain.
“We have the ability, I think we have the capacity,” she said. “I just think the organization around it has to be structured.”
Johnson also said that community members have told her how they’ve had to put cones in their driveways during Halloween celebrations so people wouldn’t park there and block them in. According to Johnson, Halloween celebrations in the city draw crowds of thousands.
Preakness Stakes follows the city’s Main Street Festival, held May 2, which has a turnout ranging from 3,000 to 5,000 people. Cornwell said the city anticipates a similar turnout from this year’s Preakness.
Cornwell said city officials aren’t anticipating a disruption to parking within city limits.
“We’re really not expecting a lot of issues because it’s no different than when they do their [Jim McKay Maryland Million Day] race every year in October, and we really don’t see an impact to the city the day of that,” she said.
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The city is casting a spotlight not only on its business but also on at least one of its nonprofits. The Laurel Historical Society will present a temporary exhibit in the lobby of City Hall throughout May in anticipation of Preakness Stakes, showcasing some of Laurel Park’s history, according to Kristen Norton, executive director of the Laurel Historical Society.
“We have a pretty extensive collection of objects related to Laurel history and development, and obviously, Laurel Park being a significant historic site in Laurel, we have quite a few objects from Laurel Park that will be on display in addition to some interpretive panels, kind of detailing the significance of the site over the last 100-plus years, ” Norton said.
Laurel Park, which opened in 1911, sits on a 229-acre site in Anne Arundel County. The racetrack has a storied history hosting generations of fans, champions and Triple Crown winners.
Since Jan. 1, 2025, Maryland has leased Laurel Park from The Stronach Group as a transition facility while Pimlico is being redeveloped. In January this year, the Maryland Stadium Authority announced it reached a tentative agreement with The Stronach Group to acquire Laurel Park to redevelop it into a “premier hub for thoroughbred training” in the state, according to an MSA news release.
Next year, Preakness Stakes is slated to return to Baltimore as Laurel Park transitions into a training center, if the state completes the purchase of the race course.
“I think it’s wonderful that people will have an opportunity to experience Laurel Park, especially if it will, in fact, turn into kind of a training center in the near future, and maybe not be as open to the public as it historically has been,” Norton said. “So I think it’s a wonderful opportunity to share Laurel Park and celebrate it for its long-standing history, hopefully with a much larger audience of people, maybe who have never been there before.”
– Capital News Service is a student-staffed reporting service operated by the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism. Stories are available at the CNS site and may be reprinted as long as credit is given to Capital News Service and, most importantly, to the students who produced the work.
Originally published at Marylandmatters.Org