Black-Eyed Susan Day 2026: The History, Traditions, and Everything to Know Before Preakness 151

Today is Black-Eyed Susan Day — the Friday of Preakness weekend, when racing at Laurel Park kicks off and everyone in Baltimore leans fully into the sport. The main event is tomorrow. But today is its own tradition: the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes (G1), a 1 1/16-mile race for three-year-old fillies with a $500,000 purse, is the distaff headliner of Preakness weekend. While the rest of the sport gears up for Saturday, the fillies get their moment at the top of the card today.

And while all roads lead to the 151st Preakness Stakes tomorrow, today is the perfect moment to get into everything that makes this race unlike anything else in American sports — starting with a name that traces back to Native Americans, George Washington, and a horse that was mocked as a "cart horse" before winning the most important race at Pimlico's opening day.

The Blanket That Takes Four People and Eight Hours to Build

When the Preakness winner crosses the finish line tomorrow, before the trophy, before the photo — there's the blanket. A 90-inch, 18-inch-wide floral blanket of Black-Eyed Susans is draped across the winning horse's withers, and it's one of the most iconic images in American sports.

Here's what most people don't know: those aren't actually Black-Eyed Susans. Maryland's state flower doesn't bloom until June, a full month after Preakness Day. So the blanket is built from Viking Poms — small, daisy-like flowers — whose centers are individually daubed with black lacquer to replicate the real thing.

The process is staggering. Four people cut and wire 4,000 individual flowers onto black matting, one by one, poking each stem through with wire to secure it in place. It takes roughly eight hours. The finished blanket is then refrigerated and delivered to the track race morning, ready to be worn by whichever horse makes it to the wire first.

The tradition started in 1940, when Colonel Edward R. Bradley's Bimelech became the first Preakness winner to wear the floral blanket. The Black-Eyed Susan was declared Maryland's state flower in 1918 and named the Preakness flower in 1940. Its 13 petals symbolize the 13 original colonies — Maryland was one. The black and yellow colors? Maryland's state colors.

Why Is It Called the Preakness? (A Story That Starts With George Washington)

This one is genuinely wild.

The name traces all the way back to the Minisi, a northern New Jersey tribe of Native Americans who called their territory Pra-qua-les — meaning "quail woods." That name evolved through various spellings over generations. One of them, "Preckness," was used by General George Washington to describe the area where his troops were quartered in the winter of 1776–77.

Nearly a century later, a thoroughbred owner named Milton H. Sanford was drawn to the name. He called two of his farms "Preakness" — one in New Jersey, one in Kentucky. In 1868, he bought a yearling by Lexington out of Bay Leaf from A.J. Alexander and named the colt Preakness. The colt cost $2,000.

Two years later, that colt showed up at Pimlico's inaugural race — the Dinner Party Stakes — on October 26, 1870. He was openly mocked as a "cart horse" for his ungainly appearance. He won anyway. And at the post-race celebration, Maryland Governor Oden Bowie was so electrified that he pledged to build a new racetrack and proposed a new stakes race for three-year-olds. He named it after the horse.

Three years later, on Tuesday, May 23, 1873, the first Preakness Stakes was run at Pimlico.

"As poet Ogden Nash wrote: 'The Derby is a race of aristocratic sleekness, for horses of birth to prove their worth to run in the Preakness.'"

Bonus fact buried in the origin story: at Pimlico's 1870 inaugural, a wire was stretched across the track from the judges' stand with a small silk bag filled with gold pieces. The winning jockey untied the bag and claimed the money. Historians believe this tradition is the origin of the modern "wire" at the finish line — and the word "purse" in horse racing. Yes, that "purse."

The Most Valuable Trophy in American Sports

The Preakness winner receives the Woodlawn Vase — a 34-inch, 29-pound, 12-ounce silver masterpiece originally created by Tiffany and Company in 1860. Appraised in 1983 at $1 million (roughly $3.25 million today), it is widely considered the most valuable trophy in American sports.

The Vase has a history as dramatic as any horse race. It was buried during the Civil War to protect it from being melted down. It spent years in Kentucky, was competed for at racetracks in Louisville, New Jersey, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, and finally arrived permanently at Pimlico in 1917. Today the original trophy lives at the Baltimore Museum of Art and is brought to the track under guard each year. A sterling silver replica — valued at $30,000 and requiring twelve weeks of hand-tooling — is what the winning owner actually takes home to keep.

The Painting of the Colors

Immediately after the Preakness winner crosses the finish line and the result is declared official, a painter climbs aboard a hydraulic lift at the infield and rises to the top of a replica of Pimlico's old Victorian clubhouse cupola. He paints the winning owner's silks — the colors and patterns — onto the jockey-and-horse weather vane that sits at the very top.

The tradition started in 1909, the year the Preakness returned to Pimlico after a 15-year exile in New York. A bugler, moved by the spirit of the day, spontaneously began playing "Maryland My Maryland." The rest of the band joined in. The crowd roared. And someone decided that painting the winner's colors on the weather vane would be the permanent way to honor each year's champion. The paint job stays on the vane until the following Preakness, when it's replaced.

As the longtime painter once said of the gig: "It's the only televised sign-painting job in the country."

By the Numbers: Preakness 151

• First run: May 23, 1873 at Pimlico — won by Survivor by 10 lengths, purse $2,050
• Current distance: 1 3/16 miles (since 1925). The race has been contested at seven different distances over its history.
• Current purse: $2,000,000 (increased from $1.5M in 2024 — the first bump since 1998)
• Time record: Secretariat, 1:53 flat (1973) — a mark so fast it was disputed for 39 years before the Maryland Racing Commission officially recognized it in 2012
• Most jockey wins: Eddie Arcaro, 6 (Whirlaway 1941, Citation 1948, Hill Prince 1950, Bold 1951, Nashua 1955, Bold Ruler 1957)
• Most trainer wins: Bob Baffert, 8
• Most owner wins: Calumet Farm, 8
• Coat color: More than half of all Preakness winners (80 of 150) have been bays. Chestnuts account for 49 more.
• Triple Crown winners that ran here: 13 — from Sir Barton (1919) to Justify (2018)
• Never on Sunday: Since 1931 the Preakness has been run on Saturday. In its full history, it has been run on every day of the week except Sunday.
• Fillies that have won: Only 6 in 150 runnings — Flocarline (1903), Whimsical (1906), Rhine Maiden (1915), Nellie Morse (1924), Rachel Alexandra (2009), Swiss Skydiver (2020)

This Year Is Historic: The First Preakness at Laurel Park

Preakness 151 is the first running of the race not held at Pimlico Race Course since 1908. Pimlico — Baltimore's legendary "Old Hilltop" — is currently in the early stages of a massive reconstruction. That pushed the race to Laurel Park for the first time in history.

Venue history by the numbers:

• 1873–1889: Pimlico Race Course, Baltimore
• 1890: Morris Park, the Bronx, NY
• 1891–1893: Not run
• 1894–1908: Gravesend Racetrack, Brooklyn, NY
• 1909–2025: Pimlico Race Course, Baltimore (117 consecutive years)
• 2026: Laurel Park, Laurel, MD

For handicappers, the venue change is more than a storyline — it changes the math. Laurel's tighter oval puts a premium on inside trips and rail-saving horses. Post positions carry more weight here than at the wider Pimlico layout. We broke down exactly how that shapes the 14-horse field in our post-position draw analysis and full field preview.

Tomorrow's Race: The Storylines to Watch

Taj Mahal enters as the 7/2 morning-line favorite — undefeated in three career starts, all of them at Laurel Park, including an 8.25-length demolition in the Federico Tesio Stakes. He has never lost on this surface. His trainer, Brittany Russell, would become the first female trainer in history to win the Preakness Stakes if Taj Mahal delivers tomorrow.

Iron Honor (Chad Brown / Flavien Prat, 8/1) is the top alternative. The blinkers-off angle in a Grade I is a classic Brown setup. Incredibolt (Riley Mott, Jaime Torres) is the only Kentucky Derby horse in the field, finishing sixth at Churchill Downs before shipping directly to Laurel as a late entry — connections willing to haul for ten hours tend to believe in their horse.

And then there's Ocelli — a maiden horse attempting something that hasn't happened since 1888. That's 138 years without a maiden winning the Preakness. The last was Refund. History says it won't happen. History also said the Preakness would never leave Baltimore.

Our full Preakness 151 picks and betting guide are live tonight. Everything you need — field, pace scenarios, best bets, and exotic plays — is on the 2026 Preakness Stakes hub.

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Happy Black-Eyed Susan Day. See you at the wire tomorrow.