Thanks to Blogs, YouTube, What Happens at the Preakness Doesn't Stay at the Preakness

If you search YouTube for "Preakness infield," you'll find all sorts of videos like this one, in which a guy pukes his guts out while a girl mocks him:

The Preakness infield has virtually nothing to do with horse racing and much to do with binge drinking and the flashing of breasts. Everything about it runs contrary to the aristocratic "Sport of Kings" image that the powers that be in horse racing try to project.

And that's fine, if that's what the consenting adults who go to the Preakness infield are looking for. But as Andrew Ratner of the Baltimore Sun writes (in a column in which he quotes me), the age of cell phone cameras and blogs and YouTube has changed the Preakness infield because it can no longer be forgotten with a couple of aspirin the next morning. You might do things in the Preakness infield that you wouldn't do in front of your co-workers, only to have your co-workers see you doing those things online.

Strangely, though, I don't think there's any evidence at all that the behavior of the people in the Preakness infield has changed. I guess that afternoon of fun is worth it.