"It was like the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan..."

The quote above was said in reference to Preakness 2008. If you aren't familiar with Preakness, it's the second most popular horse race (after the Kentucky Derby) in the country held in Baltimore in May every year. It's also a complete and utter shit show.

In 2008 my girlfriends Amanda*, Ruby*, Kim* and I traveled the ridiculously long trip from Boston to Baltimore for this time honored tradition of drinking copious amounts of alcohol while pretending to watch horses. I am going to paint you all the picture of the day, before I get to the real story, to give you some setting. It's 7 am and there are people, mostly in their 20's, lined up everywhere. Everyone is already drinking, but it's pretty tame so far. Most people have coolers filled with beer and ice, in addition to babypools to put all the beer in and tarps to sit on. You pretty much bring enough beer that you don't have to worry about buying any while you are there for the 12 hour day. So basically, a lot of beer.

(FYI: Preakness has since modified their regulations and you are now limited on the amount of alcohol you are allowed to bring it. This modification happened the year after I went, and I'm not surprised that the rule was changed in reaction to the ridiculousness of Preakness 2008.)

When most people think of horse races I'm sure they think of the pictures that are posted from the society crowd watching the Kentucky Derby. Upperclass men and women in their fancy pastel colored outfits, mimosa's and cigars in hand, obnoxious floppy hats on their heads. These people were there, but they were in the seats on the outside of the track. We, on the other hand, were in the center of the track. And that was a very different crowd.

As the day goes on, and the crowd gets drunker, dirtier (we were on a grass field afterall) and rowdier, things begin to happen. Fights start breaking out here and there. People have sex in the fields (seriously). Port-o-potty races begin. Port-o-potty races are when someone climbs on top of the row of toilets, and runs across as fast as they can, while people below are pelting full beer cans at them. Check out the video below for an example.






As it gets towards the end of the day people are not only dirty and occasionally bloody, but some people also get sick. Not everyone can drink for 12 hours straight. So you have, like I said before, the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan. Bodies every where, passed out on the ground, crawling, throwing up. It was gross. What was also gross was the amount of breasts shown.

All day long girls are flashing for free shots, free t-shirts, the crowds cheers, whatever. It's tacky and silly, and while we didn't participate in the flashing, we did comment on the girls who chose to. Many of these girls are decent looking, some even good looking. And you always know when someone flashed because from the general area you would hear "YEAAA!" or "WOOO!" (there were some very intelligent people are Preakness). But by us there were two girls who weren't getting any reaction at all.

One woman was way, way too old to be there. And way, way, way too old to be flashing everyone. She would climb up on a cooler trying to get everyone's attention, yell a bit, flash her goods, wait for the cheer, and hear... silence. The first time I felt bad for her. By the fifth time I was laughing. By the tenth I wanted to tell her to get a clue and stop that.

Shockingly she wasn't even the worst. There was another woman, and this was probably one of the largest people I have ever seen in my life. You know those TV specials about people so fat they can't get out of bed, and need the wall bulldozed down because they don't fit in the door, then need to be fork lifted out of their house? Yea, she was that big. She was trying all day to get some attention too, but was failing even worse than the old chick. That is, until, the end of the day.

She is completely topless, straddling some guy, making out with him for the world to see. The guy she was on top of was also extremely skinny, adding to the ridiculousness. No one was really paying them any attention until someone in the crowd yelled out the most perfect, epic, and priceless of all lines:

"HEY! IT'S ROB AND BIG!"

And it was. It was Rob and Big. I'm not going to lie, it was an awful thing to say, but I laughed.

So remember, everyone is ridiculous, including dumb, drunk, horse race watching fools.



*Names have been changed to protect the innocent, the not so innocent, and myself.