Most every Preakness weekend has one specific thing that sticks out in your memory.

Some years it’s the Preakness itself. Think Swiss Skydiver holding off Authentic in an October surprise. Or Curlin denying Derby winner Street Sense. Or even Maryland-bred Magic Weisner flying late for second at 40-1.

Some years it’s something that happens on the undercard. Say, Covfefe obliterating a longstanding track record of 1:09 flat for six furlongs by going 1:07.70. Or the locally-based Mr O’Brien scoring one for the home team in the then-Dixie (and helping people who’d seen his prior win cash some nice tickets).

And some years it’s something else altogether. For example, a guy taking a swing at Artax. The power going out in the Pimlico grandstand. Non-working restrooms. Or… well, you get the picture.

For me – and possibly for the Blood-Horse’s Bob Ehalt, though I can’t speak for him – 2024 will go down in memory as the “Fuego Preakness.”

He and I were the last people in the pressbox Friday evening following the Black-Eyed Susan. He was still grinding away, while I was just in the process of packing up.

And then things got interesting.

A young man burst into the room, looking – at least as I remember it – a bit wild-eyed. He looked around, spied us.

“Get out,” he yelled.

We looked back a little confusedly.

“What? Huh?”

“Get out!” he repeated. “Fuego!”

It took a minute to process that. Fuego? That’s Spanish. And it means… holy cow, it means “fire.”

My leisurely packing up became frantically jamming things in my bag. There’s no working elevator at Pimlico, of course – euthanized in 2023, someone has written on a “History of Pimlico” posted in the pressbox men’s room – but then again, you wouldn’t want to take the elevator anyway in a fire.

So, quickstep down the – how many? Many – flights of stairs from the top of Old Hilltop to the bottom. Alarms were sounded, and fire fighters responded, but in the end, it was a mostly false alarm.

A basement dryer had begun smoking, which triggered the alarms and the response, the Maryland Jockey Club said. No one was hurt, the facility was fine (to the extent Pimlico can be said to be in fine shape), and Saturday’s Preakness went off without a hitch.

No harm, no foul, just a memorable moment and a story to share.

But it’s a reminder, too: of how fast things can change, for one thing. One minute, you’re tiredly ending your work day. The next, you’re hoping to get out of a (happily, not) burning building before it’s consumed by fire.

It’s also a reminder of how disastrous a fire at a racetrack could be. The stakes barn area is literally steps from the back of Pimlico’s grandstand. How many horses were peacefully in their stalls right then?

Fortunately, all’s well that ends well. And on Saturday, after the fire that wasn’t, the only thing that was fuego were the performances of some of the horses.

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