Preakness sends a mixed message, but gets the right result

and Laurel Park, losses equaled nearly $10 million a year between 2007 and 2009, financial disclosures from the Jockey Club revealed this year.

But even if horse racing were as popular as it was in its peak, the promotion of a race as old as this one would present several challenges — staying relevant, finding new audiences and dealing with competition, marketing analysts say.

"From a promotions standpoint, it's always trying to find a new angle that appeals to people," said Vicki Bendure, spokeswoman for the Virginia Gold Cup, which celebrated its 86th anniversary last weekend.

The race now competes with other major events, and in the last few years it also lost some of its audience and sponsors to the weak economy, Bendure said.

When a product has been around for generations, its marketers have to come up with a new use to prolong its relevance, says Leslie Kendrick, a marketing lecturer at the Johns Hopkins University.

Just as baking soda became a refrigerator deodorant, horse races have become entertainment spectacles.

Last year, the Gold Cup invited the Food Network and "Ace of Cakes" to film there; Duff Goldman made a cake in the trophy's likeness. This year, organizers had a horse cavalry unit perform a demonstration in honor of the Civil War sesquicentennial, Bendure said.

The Maryland Jockey Club began to focus on more family-friendly crowds in 2009, when it ended the popular BYOB policy at Pimlico, which had guaranteed them tens of thousands of fans eager to binge drink in what became an annual exercise in debauchery.

In 2007, videos of drunken patrons racing across portable toilets brought negative attention to the race and influenced the Jockey Club's decision to tame the infield.

To stave off an exodus, it created the

and invited ZZ Top and Buckcherry to perform, and it hosted a professional women's beach volleyball tournament. Beer was sold for $3.50 a pop. The crowds deserted it anyway.

Since then, the Jockey Club has tried to calibrate its marketing to avoid turning off young fans who want a party while still catering to older, more conservative fans.

With young people in mind, Preakness has been increasing its online presence. This year, 20 employees were hired just to handle traditional and new media outreach, including three bloggers and one person who takes care of just the Facebook and Twitter pages, said Jockey Club spokesman Mike Gathagan. Preakness has also added a free iPhone app.

As for the entertainment, the Jockey Club asked promoter I.M.P. for a headliner — like this year's Bruno Mars — that would appeal to a 21-40 demographic and drive attendance to the infield, Chuckas said. Tickets have remained under $50, plus $20 for the Mug Club, which gives attendees another draw, a bottomless beer mug.

This year's Kegasus campaign was made by the same firm, Elevation, LTD, that created last year's "Get Your Preak On" campaign. With its goofy twittering mascot and over-the-top slogans, the ad campaign was another, albeit less racy, attempt to appeal to young people.

Purists have been offended again. Tom Cooke, president of the Cloverleaf Standardbred Owners Association, called it sensationalistic, and Bendure said it's not something the Gold Cup would have pursued.

"Our main audience this past weekend was vying for who had the most beautiful hat, the most lavish tailgate," she said. "Very different from the Preakness messaging."

Chuckas defended it and described it as "very successful."

"It did exactly what we wanted it to do," he said. In response to questions that Kegasus promotes drinking, he said, "If all I wanted to do was promote drinking, I wouldn't have spent the funds I spent to provide the entertainment out there."

He said Kegasus was a component of a larger strategy that also included an appeal to older fans of Preakness.

Train, a staple of adult-contemporary radio stations, will perform before Bruno Mars, who is only 25. At Pimlico's grandstand and the corporate village, there will be high-end vendors — a cigar company, luxury hats, cosmetics, a health bar — as well as tents for The New York Times and the Maryland Lottery.

"When you start looking at the corporate village, Turfside Terrace, the dining room, that age group has a more traditional history with racing, and they're looking for the grandeur of racing, the socializing with their friends for the day," Chuckas said.

The balancing act has not turned off sponsors and has not alarmed police.

There will be several hundred policemen on the scene, uniformed and in plainclothes, as well as undercover officers in the infield, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. But police are not expecting a repeat of the "The Running of the Urinals." This year, there's more concern about people illegally charging for off-site parking.

HRTV, the horse racing network, will return as a sponsor again, said president Jim Bates, who, when asked if Kegasus had turned off his network, said, "The infield is immaterial to what we do. The pluses [of sponsoring Preakness] far outweigh the minuses."

The Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development and the Maryland Lottery will share a corporate tent, and have spent a combined $89,000 on tickets for 150 guests, said Karen Glenn Hood director of media relations at the department.

Equally giddy about the race are the party bus companies.

Virginia company Chariots for Hire, which has had Preakness buses from Washington to Baltimore since 2004, anticipates five buses of about 40 people each will go this year, said operations manager Patrick Fortkort.

Boomerang, which has been ferrying people to the races for four years, will take about 150 this year, owner Nikki DuBois said.

DuBois said many of her customers "boycotted" the race and her business to protest the dry Infield in 2009.

But the Mug Club, the concerts featuring current bands, and the friendlier infield have brought them back, she said. Though she had avoided the infield for years because it was too "dangerous," she started going in 2009 because it had changed since her college days.

"It attracts a different group. They're a little dressier, people feel a bit safer," she said. "You can feel you're in a college campus where there's a big tailgate, but it's not so crowded that you'd feel out of place in your 70s."

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