gary stevens

On a day like Saturday at Pimlico Race Course, the question isn’t whether to wear goggles. It’s how many.

Taylor Leatherman wants to ride a Triple Crown winner one day. Her best mount has been a horse that will not run one Triple Crown leg. And still her few days’

Royal Mo, one of 11 horses who had commited to run in Saturday's Preakness, appeared to suffer an injury to his right front leg this morning, according to

Five storylines to watch as Always Dreaming tries to repeat his Kentucky Derby success at the Preakness at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore on May 20.

Dejuan Clayton made three free throws with 0.6 of a second left in regulation to force overtime, and Coppin State earned its first victory of the season, 89-83 over visiting Goldey-Beacom.

Veteran jockey Steve Hamilton will be riding eight times during the rich 11-race Maryland Million Day program as he continues to rebuild a career that lay fallow while he raised his family and worked as a blacksmith back in his home state of Oklahoma.

All week, the connections to the Preakness' top contenders have been asked an impossible question: What will your horse do in the downpour that might drench the racetrack, or might not come at all? Their answers have differed only in style.

Alongside the new C Street Flats apartments, an old world shoemaker shop, A. M. Kroop and Sons, breathes quietly and deeply in the hub of the city's revitalized Arts and Entertainment District. The shop's current proprietor, Columbia resident Randy Kroop, said she hasn't changed the painstaking 125-step process used by her grandfather since taking over the shop from her father, Morris, and her uncle, Israel, in the late 1970s

By going wire-to-wire to win the Belmont Saturday, American Pharoah ended one of the most-famous dry spells in sports.

¿I knew from the start that it just wasn't happening,¿ Firing Lien trainer Simon Callaghan said.

American Pharoah proved he can win from a bad post position and on a muddy track in the 2015 Preakness.

After brokering the sale of Mr. Z, trainer D. Wayne Lukas got into the 140th Preakness, looking for his 15th win in a Triple Crown race

It will take a lot of bad luck in the 2015 Preakness for American Pharoah to have a bad run and not win, experts say.

Firing Line came very close to being the Triple Crown candidate with a strong performance at the Kentucky Derby, and the planets have aligned almost perfectly for him to upset American Pharoah in the Preakness.

American Pharoah is a brilliant horse, admired by all the wisest observers in the racing game. But the Kentucky Derby champion is always a sensation during Preakness week. What sets this year apart is the presence of two challengers in Firing Line and Dortmund who gave the champ all he wanted at Churchill Downs.

One of the greatest trainers in Preakness history, six-time winner D. Wayne Lukas, created a bit of intrigue Wednesday by unexpectedly entering Mr. Z in Saturday's race. Mr. Z's owner, Ahmed Zayat, had said he did not want to bring the horse back on two weeks' rest after a 13th-place finish in the Kentucky Derby. But Lukas helped facilitate a mid-week sale of the horse from Zayat to Kentucky's Calumet Farm and entered the horse into the Preakness, where he will start third from the rail.

It had to be one of those what-are-the-odds moments for trainer Bob Baffert, and we're not talking about the fact that Kentucky Derby winner American Pharoah was set as a 4-5 morning line favorite for the 140th running of the Preakness on Saturday at Old Hilltop. Baffert, who said before Wednesday's race draw that he is always "post-position sensitive," ended up with both Pharoah and third-place Derby finisher Dortmund stacked 1-2 on the rail.

2015 Preakness has an eight-horse field with American Pharoah a 4-5 favorite and Dortmund and Firing Line the second choices at 7-2.

With the post-position draw for the 2015 Preakness Stakes coming Wednesday, a few questions remain about the field that will challenge Kentucky Derby winner American Pharoah.

Five key storylines heading into the 2015 Preakness

Baltimore could be set to host a blockbuster sequel with Kentucky Derby champion American Pharoah and top rivals Firing Line and Dortmund all pointed toward the May 16 Preakness.

Firing Line entered as the most famous runner-up in the Kentucky Derby field, the horse that twice pushed Dortmund to the wire, only to lose each time.

Baffert's remarkable duo — the effortlessly swift 5-2 favorite American Pharoah and undefeated 3-1 second choice Dortmund — will start in the No. 18 and No. 8 posts, respectively, as determined by Wednesday evening's post-position draw.

Ben's Cat fell short in his quest to become the seventh Maryland-bred with at least $2 million in career earnings, finishing fourth in the $300,000 Jaipur Invitational on Saturday at Belmont Park.