Named for the first winner of Pimlico’s original race, the Preakness Stakes occupies a special place in the heart of the American turf. This 1 3/16-mile classic asks 3-year-olds to try a distance just a sixteenth of a mile shorter than the 1 ¼-mile Kentucky Derby, a test of their stamina, conditioning, and heart two weeks after the first jewel of the Triple Crown. Contested since 1873, the race has lasted through the ups and downs of Maryland racing and has become as essential to the sport as its companion races in the Triple Crown.  

As the Preakness celebrates its 150^th edition, three traditions – the painting of Pimlico’s weather vane, the presentation of the Woodlawn vase, and the blanket of Black-eyed Susans – mark this special day on the racing calendar, each making the third Saturday in May a memorable occasion for both the winners and the fans there to witness history in the making.

The Woodlawn Vase

At 36 inches in height and just over 29 pounds in weight, the Woodlawn Vase is one of the sport’s most iconic trophies – and one of its most valuable. A 1985 valuation put the number at $1 million, but 40 years later, it is closer to $4 million — a sterling silver stalwart that spends 364 days a year in a case in the Baltimore Museum of Art and one day in its traditional role as the trophy for the Preakness Stakes. How a trophy crafted for Kentucky racing came to be a tradition for Maryland’s jewel of the Triple Crown is an extraordinary tale all its own.

The Woodlawn Vase (Eclipse Sportswire)

The vase was the first created by Tiffany and Co., which also crafts the Belmont Memorial Challenge Cup, the trophy awarded to the winner of the Belmont Stakes. Commissioned by Col. Robert Aitcheson Alexander, the breeder who stood legendary stallion Lexington, the vase was created for the Woodlawn Association Stakes, a four-mile stakes race held at Louisville’s Woodlawn Race Course. The track opened to great fanfare in 1859, and Alexander commissioned Tiffany’s to create this historic trophy the same year, paying $1,500 for the solid sterling silver vase. At its peak is a replica of Lexington with a jockey in his saddle, an appropriate choice for Preakness, the horse for whom the middle jewel is named, was sired by this foundation stallion.

The first winner was Capt. Thomas G. Moore’s mare Mollie Jackson. Moore won the Woodlawn Association Stakes again in 1862, and then, when the Civil War ended racing in Kentucky, Moore buried the famed and valuable trophy on his property to prevent it from being captured and melted down. When racing resumed, the trophy once again went to the victor of a Woodlawn stakes, but when the track closed in 1870, the vase passed to different owners for a variety of stakes races over the next few decades. Eventually, it made its way from Kentucky to New York, through a chain of custody that included the Dwyer Brothers and others. In 1904, the trophy passed to Thomas Clyde after his horse Shorthose won the weight for age race on Morris Park’s final day of operation. Clyde held on to the trophy until 1917, when he donated it to the Maryland Jockey Club. Their agreement stipulated that the trophy would go to the winner of a suitable race through any racing association in the country.  

That same year, the Maryland Jockey Club offered the Woodlawn Vase to the winner of the Preakness Stakes, Col. E.R. Bradley’s Kalitan. Bradley could keep the trophy for a year, but then he could designate the winner of a race other than the Preakness Stakes to pass the vase on to. However, he chose the Preakness Stakes again. It soon became a tradition for the Woodlawn Vase to go from the previous year’s Preakness winner to the next victor, the winning owner literally keeping the sterling silver trophy in their home for the intervening year.

When Native Dancer won the Preakness in 1953, Jean Murray Vanderbilt, the wife of Alfred G. Vanderbilt, refused to keep the historic trophy in their home. Pimlico instead offers a smaller replica to each year’s owner, while the Woodlawn Vase resides in its current home, the Baltimore Museum of Art, where it is on display for visitors to see every day of the year except one: the third Saturday in May, Preakness day.

On that day, crisply dressed soldiers with white gloves carry this priceless totem to the winner’s circle at Pimlico, Lexington once again looking out over this historic racetrack, anticipating the next horse to join the long list of greats to earn the title of Preakness victor.

The Weather Vane

As the Preakness victor stands in the winner’s circle, the blanket of Black-eyed Susan draped over its withers, the winning owner, trainer, and jockey all stand with family, friends, and Pimlico luminaries, cameras clicking and recording their celebration. In the background, a hydraulic lift ascends the side of the cupola behind them and Dick Hageman puts his paints and brushes to work on another Preakness tradition, painting Pimlico’s signature weather vane with the colors of the winning owner.

The painting of the weather vane in 2014. (Eclipse Sportswire)

When the Preakness returned to Pimlico in 1909, it had been absent from the Baltimore racetrack for 20 years; at least 15 editions of a stakes race called the Preakness were contested in New York during that interval. When lightning damaged the original weather vane, William P. Riggs, secretary of the Maryland Jockey Club, commissioned a new one for the Victorian-style clubhouse. Crafted in the shape of a horse and rider, Riggs decided to celebrate the winner of that year’s Preakness, Effendi, with a new custom, painting it with the owner’s colors. Through two world wars, pandemics, and economic ups and downs, the tradition has continued year in and year out. When that classic clubhouse burned down in 1966, the only thing surviving the inferno was that weather vane. It now resides in a small museum inside the racetrack.

In its place, Pimlico installed a five-foot-wide aluminum replica, which adorns the infield cupola, styled after that long-gone clubhouse. Layered on it are nearly 60 years of paint, each layer a reminder of winners past. On Preakness day, Hageman collects the various colors of the possible winners and then watches the race, going to work as soon as the winner crosses the finish line. He paints the silks first and then adds the horse’s coat color and any identifying marks, like blazes and socks, as well as the winner’s saddlecloth number. He will then go and paint the iron jockey by the stakes barn, adding touches that make the stationary figure look like the winning rider.

Throughout the year, Hageman will return to Pimlico to check on both the weather vane and the iron jockey, updating the paint job on both as needed, always anticipating repeating the process when Preakness time comes around again.

The Black-Eyed Susans

The Kentucky Derby is known as the “run for the roses,” the winner draped in a blanket of the iconic red version of the flower each year, and interestingly, prior to 1939, the Preakness winner also wore a blanket of roses. For Challedon’s 1939 victory, the Maryland Jockey Club had local florists create a blanket of the Maryland state flower, the Black-eyed Susan, to create a tradition unique to this middle jewel of the Triple Crown, a cascade of yellow and black that has graced the withers of every Preakness winner since.

Winner’s blanket of “Black-eyed Susans” (Eclipse Sportswire)

The Black-eyed Susan is a perennial daisy and a member of the sunflower family. Growing up to three feet in height, it is about 2-3 inches in diameter, with yellow petals surrounding a dark brown circular center. These flowers generally bloom in late June and July as wildflowers, which means they are not typically available for the Preakness in mid-May and are not commercially grown like roses. Instead, Giant Foods in Baltimore, which has created the winner’s blanket since the late 1990s, uses Viking poms, a member of the Chrysanthemum family, as a substitute for the Black-eyed Susan. The blooms are similar to the state flower, with yellow petals and a dark brown center, and can be grown commercially, which makes them an ideal choice for the Preakness winner’s blanket of Black-eyed Susans.

The Friday before the Preakness, five florists gather in a special area at Giant Foods to craft the 10-foot-long blanket for the victor of the historic stakes. In view of customers, whom they often will invite to participate, they start with a green rubber mat and then add a layer of Ruscus, a leafy green that highlights the color in the Viking poms. Then the florists snip the stems from each flower and insert a wire into the bloom, weaving the flowers through the rubber mat. Each blanket takes about 5,000 flowers and eight hours to create. Once that work is done, a layer of felt is then hand-sewn onto the back of the blanket to keep the wires from poking the horse. For the final step, the florists spray the flowers with water and put the blanket into a refrigerator until Saturday morning, when a Pimlico representative arrives to take it to the racetrack.

For the former Pimlico Oaks, now named the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes, the winner also gets a blanket of the yellow and brown flowers, a smaller version of the one the Preakness victor wears. The florists are busy both Thursday and Friday of Preakness week, feverishly crafting these iconic swaths of flowers, a grand tradition for this Maryland jewel of the Triple Crown.

When Preakness day is done, the Woodlawn Vase goes back into its home to wait for next year’s adventure. That blanket of Black-eyed Susans will accompany the winner back to their barn, a 10-foot memento of a historic occasion. And for the next 365 days, that weather vane will go where the wind blows, proudly reminding us who made the middle jewel of their Triple Crown their own.