Joe Clancy

Paul Rowland came to Robbie Walsh in the Meadowlands paddock with a pretty simple message about front-running hurdle horse Preemptive Strike.

The Maryland Million delivers – even during a pandemic. The Mid-Atlantic’s best racing day – debate if you want – annually brings a bit of everything and did so again Saturday. There were fans (not many, but welcome back) at Laurel Park, and they were having a good time. Chalky favorites Hello Beautiful and Fiya won. So did longshots Glengar and Beltway Bob. Stallion Great Notion won four races. So did jockey Sheldon Russell, who edged a triple by Trevor McCarthy.

The sound. That’s the first thing that strikes you when horses gallop past on the new Fair Hill turf course, rebuilt over the last year by the state of Maryland, and used by horses for the first time last week.

History was made a little after 9 Wednesday morning as Mean Mary galloped deliberately through the stretch to become the first horse to pass the finish line on the new Fair Hill turf course in Fair Hill, Md.

Trainer Kenny McPeek said it Friday, while hosing Swiss Skydiver’s legs and feeding her mints outside the Pimlico Race Course stakes barn. If his star filly could get her first half-mile in :48 (ish), no matter where she was in the field of 11, she could finish in the first three in the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course.

Saturday, she went out and did it.

If you watched the May 17 races at Churchill Downs on Fox Sports or whatever other network was showing pandemic racing at the time, you got a glimpse of the future as Art Collector made his first start as a 3-year-old.

Kenny McPeek and Swiss Skydiver could have been at Charles Town, Timonium, Ellis Park, any track in the country about 7:30 the morning before the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course. One man, one horse, a hose, a pocketful of mints, a fly sheet rolled up in front to avoid the spray – and water, lots of cold water.

The Friday scene made McPeek think of his early days with Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey.

Ned Toffey was smiling. Really. Photos from the aftermath of Authentic’s Kentucky Derby victory might show otherwise, but Toffey – general manager of the colt’s co-owner Spendthrift Farm – is having none of it.