Homeboykris, a Maryland-bred 9-year-old gelding, collapsed after winning the first race of the day and getting his picture taken in the winner’s circle. Preliminary reports suggest the horse may have died from a heart attack but a necropsy is pending.

Then in the fourth race, a 4-year-old filly named Pramedya broke a leg on the last turn and was euthanized on the track. Her jockey, Daniel Centeno, was thrown and then taken to Sinai Hospital where he is being treated for a broken right clavicle.

Coincidentally, Pramedya was owned by the same people as Barbaro, the 2006 Kentucky Derby winner who suffered a similar injury in that year’s Preakness and was ultimately euthanized.

The deaths highlight the inherent danger of horse racing, a danger even some fans feel is too high a price to pay for sport.

One website that tracks racehorse deaths in Britain counts 64 fatalities already this year. In America, The Jockey Club maintains an Equine Injury Database in which Pimlico recorded seven track deaths in 2015.

According to statements made by Maryland Jockey Club president Sal Sinatra in The Sun, today’s are the first two deaths at the race course this year.

“It’s deflating. . . . You try to figure it out, go through so many steps to make sure the horses are OK. . . . Things do happen,” Sinatra told The Sun.

Neither horse death was announced to the record crowd of 135,256 spectators, which included actor Josh Charles, quarterback Tony Romo, and rapper 50 Cent.

Still, despite the tragedy and the muddy track, the Preakness was run with rivals Nyquist and Exaggerator facing off for the fifth time. But this time, unlike the previous four match ups, Exaggerator came out ahead after a strong stretch run past a flagging Nyquist. Cherry Wine finished second, nosing out Nyquist at the finish line and relegating the previously unbeaten colt to third.

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EAT

May 22: Taharka Bros. Ice Cream Social

Reginald F. Lewis Museum, 830 E. Pratt St.
2 p.m. Free-$8. 443-263-1800.

A Dream Preferred tastes like summer, with beautiful sweeping shots of hot city streets, melting ice cream, and the tale of hardworking kids on a time crunch, trying to make a buck. But the short film isn’t fiction—it’s the real story of Baltimore’s own Taharka Bros., the six-year-old, “Best of Baltimore”-winning ice cream company that makes some of the best small-batch scoops in town. In 29 days, these six young men raised $28,000 to get their business off the ground and launch a food truck for social change. Follow their story, directed by the Academy Award-nominated directors of Freakonomics and Jesus Camp, meet the men themselves, and wish it was warmer weather with an ice cream social, full of their creative flavors.

DRINK

May 21-22: Wine in the Woods

Symphony Woods, 10475 Little Patuxent Pwky., Columbia. Sat. 11 a.m.=6 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Free-$40. 410-313-4700.

We don’t need
to tell you that it’s going to rain again this weekend, but you can wash away
your sorrows with a full-day festival of booze. Now in its 26th year, the
Symphony Woods will transform into a wine-lover’s paradise with thousands of
guests, lots of live music, and more than 20 local wineries, including
favorites like Boordy Vineyards and Linganore Winecellars, as well as newbies
Winecream, aka boozy ice cream made with berry wine. Choose your favorite
vintage, dig on the sounds of Rumba Club, and stay afloat with a flock of food
vendors, toting everything from old-fashioned kettle corn and crab dip to beef
jerky, brick-oven pizza, and, of course, cheese.

SEE

May 21: 141st Preakness Stakes

Pimlico Race Course, 5201 Park Heights Ave. Doors open at 8 a.m. Race begins at 6:18 p.m. 877-206-8042.

It seems that this year’s Preakness has all the trappings of last year. An exciting Kentucky Derby, an undefeated favorite, and a coming cloud of rain. Anyone who watched the Churchill Downs heat is excited for this year’s 141st race. Just a little over a mile, the Pimlico Race Course will make or break a champion, possibly even sending one thoroughbred onto being the second Triple Crown winner of the last 37 years. Partake in a bevy of Preakness activities, hear big-name headliner at this year’s InfieldFest, including DJ duo The Chainsmokers, hip-hop chart-topper Fetty Wap, and Towson’s own pop-punkers All Time Low, and long live the Sport of Kings.

HEAR

May 21: The Snails

Ottobar, 2549 N.
Howard St. 8 p.m. $12. 410-662-0069.

This sporadic super-group is one we wish performed year-round. Donning Aaahh!!! Real Monsters-esque headdresses and featuring members of Future Islands, these eclectic critters are easy to instantly love, with the guttural croon-growl of Samuel T. Herring (aka “Sammy Snail”—each bandmate gets their own mollusk moniker), and the wave-riding riffs of bassist William Cashion (“Snailliam,” also of Peals). And of course, there’s the sprightly saxophone, rolling-thunder drums, and true-grit garage guitar (plus the occasional drum-kit domination of April Camlin, or “Snailpril,” of Wume). Dubbed “AM radio reggae-pop,” the music straddles the line between raw punk, funky ska, and SoCal surf, and after a 2013 debut, the core quintet’s new funky, feel-good follow-up is the sunny sound you’ll want to hear during all your rooftop parties, backyard barbecues, and sunburnt trips to the beach. They even include a couple of killer instrumentals, but for the foreseeable future, we’re listening to “Shoebox” on repeat, which you should too, starting with their homecoming show this Saturday night.

DO

May 20: Baltimore Square Dance

The Ideal Arts Space, 905 W. 36th St.
7:15-11 p.m. $7-10.

Baltimore is a dancing town. In Station North, you can get down to Bmore Club at The Crown. In Remington, you rock out at the Ottobar. During Save Your Soul, you can shake your groove thing in SoBo at Lithuanian Hall. And this weekend, in Hampden, you can even square dance. The Baltimore Square Dance is now in its third year, typically being held at the Mobtown Ballroom in Pigtown. But after a successful run at The Ideal last month, they’re coming back for another night of live music and old-fashioned fun. Don’t worry if you don’t know the steps—there will be a “flat-footed” lesson beforehand, and the whole night will be BYOB.

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“I started going around to bars in D.C., Baltimore, and Annapolis and asked what they were putting into their mixes,” says David, 41, CEO and president of George’s Mixes. “Then I put a recipe together for brunch one day and it was pretty darn good.”

The feedback from Middleton’s brunch crowd had a significant impact on what would later become an award-winning mix, widely distributed throughout the region.

“Every Sunday I’d change the recipe a little bit,” David recalls. “And, about two years after I first started messing around with it, a guest said, ‘Keep that recipe, that’s the one.’”

That very blend was the impetus for George’s Mixes, David’s now four-year-old startup that is expanding rapidly throughout the region. George’s bottled Bloody Mary mixes (which come in both spicy and mild variations) are sold at more than 2,000 local bars, grocery stores, music festivals, and sporting events, and the company is preparing to launch its own margarita mix this summer.

Since its official launch in 2013, George’s has partnered with big-name sellers like Giant Foods, M&T Bank Stadium, and Pimlico Race Course, which will feature the mix at all of its bars for the fourth consecutive year at the upcoming Preakness Stakes on May 21.

“Classic drinks are synonymous with an event like Preakness,” David says. “The day starts early, and people don’t want a beer or a Jack on the rocks at 10 in the morning. They want something that can wake up their taste buds and really complement their breakfast.”

Other than the fact that nothing (aside from alcohol) needs to be added in, David says the thing that what sets the mix apart is its all-natural ingredients: fresh horseradish, tomato puree, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, and lemon juice. The recipe is what got David first place in Seacrets’ first annual Bloody Mary contest back in 2006.

“We didn’t re-invent the wheel. We just use the freshest ingredients around,” he says. “The Worcestershire sauce isn’t some crap with corn syrup and food coloring, and we use real tomatoes and real lemon juice. Other people in the market were too scared to do it, but we weren’t because we had been serving it for so many years and we knew people wanted it.”

Looking ahead, David is excited to launch George’s Margarita Mix, which is expected to hit shelves by Memorial Day Weekend. In keeping with the company’s philosophy, the drink fuses natural ingredients like lime juice, orange juice, and agave nectar, and is only 80 calories per serving.

David notes that he’s happy to have built George’s—which is named after his late father who passed away 14 years ago of cancer—at a time where other regional food startups, like Tessemae’s All-Natural, are also gaining traction.

“This area is becoming a great hub for entrepreneurship,” he says. “All you have to do is drive around the beltway and you see so many billion-dollar local businesses. It kind of makes you look at them all and say ‘If they can, I can.’”

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Preakness Roundup

Our guide to the events, food, and fashion during Preakness.

Editors of Baltimore magazine - May 9, 2016

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“There are definitely those cocktails that never go out of style, and one of the things that I really enjoy about classic cocktails is that they go back to the basics,” says Colette’s bar manager Crystal Wack. “It’s great to have people come in and see things they’ve never tried, but also recognize the names of certain drinks.”

In celebration of the horse-racing season, Wack has added a slew of traditional sips—including The Mint Julep, The Preakness, The Black Eyed Susan, and The Belmont Breeze—to the bistro’s bar menu, as well as an original drink that she’s created in honor of the races.

The “Sir Barton,” named after the first horse to ever win the Triple Crown in 1919, is Wack’s take on the classic Southside, a citrusy summertime cocktail with Prohibition roots that gained popularity among the hunt club crowd in Maryland. Wack’s rendition combines Baltimore Whiskey Company’s Shot Tower gin, lime juice, mint leaves, and cucumber bitters.

“Mine is a little bit of a variation of both the original Southside and the Baltimore version,” she says. “I wanted to keep it light and refreshing for spring and summertime with the gin and the mint, and the freshness of the cucumber bitters mixes with that really well.”

The entire race-inspired drink menu will be offered at Colette throughout the month of May, but if you want to serve the Sir Barton at your own Preakness party, here is the recipe:

Sir Barton:

Ingredients:
1 1/2-oz. Shot Tower Gin
1/2-oz. clarified lime juice
1/2-oz. simple syrup
5 mint leaves
1 dash cucumber bitters

In a shaker, add all ingredients. Shake and double strain into a rocks glass with a large ice cube. Garnish with additional mint.

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