Faidley’s crab derby keeps Preakness-week tradition alive in downtown Baltimore

Faidley’s annual crab derby turned Lexington Market into a downtown pre-Preakness stop with a distinctly Baltimore twist: officials and civic leaders raced crabs instead of horses, and this year Shelonda Stokes took home the trophy.

The event, held Friday at Faidley’s Patio at the new Lexington Market, has been going on for about 40 years and has become part competition, part joke and part civic ritual. Crab jockeys guide the crustaceans down the track with a small fishing rod and a spray of water, a setup that gives the derby its odd charm and keeps it lodged in local memory.

Stokes, president and chief executive officer of the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore, gave the race an added downtown significance. She has led the organization since 2020, and her win linked a lighthearted tradition to the broader effort to keep foot traffic, attention and energy flowing through the city center during a major Baltimore sports week.

The setting matters as much as the spectacle. Lexington Market is described by its operators as the longest continually operating public market in America, and the Baltimore Public Market System is described as the oldest continuously operating public market system in the United States. Faidley’s Seafood, a family-owned business since 1886, sits at the center of that history, with the crab derby reinforcing the market’s role as more than a place to eat lunch.

That role takes on extra weight this week. The 151st Preakness Stakes is scheduled for Saturday, May 16, 2026, at Laurel Park while Pimlico Race Course is under renovation, shifting some of the city’s race-week focus away from the track and into places like downtown Baltimore. Faidley’s derby helps keep the Preakness atmosphere alive in the city’s core, where legacy businesses and public market traditions still help define Baltimore’s visitor economy.

In a city often dominated by headlines about budgets, crime and long-term infrastructure challenges, the crab derby offered something rarer: a public reminder that Baltimore’s identity is also built in old institutions that still know how to pull people downtown.