Preakness makes historic stop at Laurel Park in Prince George's County

A 4,800-person cap turned Preakness 151 into a tight economic test for Prince George's County, where Laurel Park hosted the race for the first time in the event's 151-year history. The race ran Saturday, May 16, 2026, while Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore sat idle for a major redevelopment project that forced the Triple Crown staple to move.

The Black-Eyed Susan Stakes ran the day before, Friday, May 15, at Laurel Park, 198 Laurel Race Track Road in Laurel. Prince George's County promoted Preakness 151 as a rare chance to host the pageantry and prestige of the event, and Laurel officials cast the weekend as a showcase for the city's business community and its place inside the county. Local hotels, restaurants and vendors were positioned for a short burst of spending, but the small crowd limited the scale of any windfall.

That crowd cap mattered. Laurel's attendance ceiling of 4,800 was a fraction of the six-figure crowds that once packed Pimlico, including a reported record 140,237 in 2017. For county planners and downtown business owners, the stopover offered visibility more than volume, the kind of high-profile weekend that can fill rooms and tables without producing the spillover that comes with a massive gate. The state also had a bigger real estate plan in motion: in April, Governor Wes Moore announced Maryland would buy the 229-acre Laurel Park property for $48.5 million and redevelop it into a training hub while Pimlico is rebuilt.

State officials said the broader racing realignment would save Maryland more than $50 million, including construction and operating costs, and that Preakness would return to a rebuilt Pimlico in 2027. That timetable makes Laurel's role look less like a new home for the race than a temporary bridge between two construction projects, and possibly a one-off spectacle rather than a durable business model for Prince George's County.

On the track, Napoleon Solo won the 151st Preakness over a 14-horse field, the largest in 15 years. Paco Lopez rode the winner and Chad Summers trained him, giving both their first Preakness victories and ending Laurel's historic turn with a result that matched the event's unusual setting.