{"id":11453896,"date":"2025-05-20T05:00:06","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T09:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.baltimoresun.com\/?p=11453896"},"modified":"2025-05-19T19:54:15","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T23:54:15","slug":"preakness-2025-attendance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.baltimoresun.com\/2025\/05\/20\/preakness-2025-attendance\/","title":{"rendered":"Preakness 2025: Pimlico chapter ends with another sparse crowd"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before Journalism sped down the final stretch to earn a narrow victory in the 150th running of the Preakness Stakes<\/a>, longtime spectators noted the track’s many empty seats and vacant infield plots, which in previous years were active with revellers.<\/p>\n

While Saturday’s feature race was one to remember, officials who pushed for the planned rebuild of Pimlico Race Course<\/a> may want to forget the flagging attendance record in recent years at the second jewel of horse racing’s Triple Crown.<\/p>\n

To Pat Curran, a Perry Hall resident who’s been to Preakness 27 times, Saturday could have been “a normal day at the track, … It did not have the same Preakness feel to me.”<\/p>\n

It seemed less crowded than in previous years, especially earlier in the day and in parts of the grandstand and infield, Curran and others said. And with ticketing this year targeted to specific events or areas, some attendees said they felt more restricted in their roaming than usual.<\/p>\n

At the landmark track’s last major event before being razed in June and then rebuilt in time for Preakness 2027 in a $500 million redevelopment, <\/a>perceptions of crowd size proved on the mark. It’s part of a larger trend that state officials hope to reverse.<\/p>\n

Race organizers said late Sunday that 63,000 people attended races on Friday and Saturday, a number just slightly less than the 63,423 who attended the two-day event last year<\/a>.\u00a0 As of Monday, attendance was not available for individual Friday and Saturday sessions, said a spokeswoman for 1\/ST, a brand of The Stronach Group, which hosts the race.<\/p>\n

In recent years, the Preakness has lost money as attendance has decreased from an average of more than 100,000 in the decade before the coronavirus pandemic. In 2019, roughly 182,000 attended the weekend, including 131,256 on Preakness Day.<\/p>\n

In 2023, an announced 46,999 attended the Preakness, with a combined 65,000 attending both days; and in 2022, 42,055 attended the Saturday event while more than 60,000 attended both days, Stronach had said. Organizers have said they intentionally reshaped events for smaller crowds at the aging facility, which includes facilities that are unused because they have been condemned.<\/p>\n

Ebone Granger, a resident of Ashburn, Virginia, has attended Preakness weekend for a decade with a cousin and a friend. They sit in the same section on the club side near the finish line.<\/p>\n

“Everybody knows everybody, and the bartender knows us and has our drinks ready,” said Granger, who runs Granger Financial insurance in Sterling, Virginia, with her husband. “This was probably one of our favorite years.”<\/p>\n