Early Voting follows a familiar path and wins the Preakness Stakes

Early Voting won the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course on Saturday evening. It's the same owner and trainer who won it in 2017. The Preaks is a big white, wealthy sporting event in a poorer, largely black neighborhood. There were almost no fans at the October 2020 Preakers' Stake. There was 10,000 fans a year ago. A poet from Baltimore grew up near PIMlica. He wrote a poem about it. "It's been crumbling for a while now and still standing, obstinate." "The Preks is not dependent on the bigger race that precedes it or tethered to the sometimes-bigger race"

Tim Layden is a writer-at-large for NBC Sports. He was a senior writer at Sports Illustrated for 25 years.