Early Voting follows a familiar path and wins the Preakness Stakes

BALTIMORE — There is a narrative awaiting oxygen in which the Preakness is just a very big horse race in the middle of May. In which it is not dependent on the bigger race that precedes it or tethered to the sometimes-bigger race that follows; and not described disparagingly in terms of which horses are not participating, rather than glowingly in terms of which ones are. In which it is not subsumed by the need for a story larger than its own. In which its crumbling physical home (not for nothing, it’s been crumbling for a while now and still standing, obstinate, as if it has heard all the disrespect and wants to prove a point) and uncertain future are made less relevant by what transpires on the racetrack in the here and now.

In which the race is the thing, all by itself.

Early Saturday evening at Pimlico Race Course, this is what transpired: A horse named Early Voting, who did not run in the Kentucky Derby, won the 147th Preakness in just the fourth race of his life and the first at a track other gritty Aqueduct, right next door to JFK Airport on the edge of Jamaica Bay. He is owned by a man who was once a little boy right here in Baltimore, just a few blocks from the track, and then went on and did big things. He is trained by a man who was once a boy in upstate New York, and snuck into Saratoga Race Course by slithering sideways through a gap in a fence, and then went on and did big things. Déjà vu: It’s the same owner and trainer who won the 2017 Preakness with a similarly fresh horse.

All of this is a nice story and a sweet story. A racing story. A human story and an equine story. And more: Winning jockey Jose Ortiz was hit with waves of emotion at the finish. “Dream come true for any rider,” he said. Is it story