Women are breaking barriers in horse racing’s Triple Crown. Is another about to fall?

LEXINGTON, Ky. – “He’s feeling pretty full of himself lately,” Brittany T. Russell sounds upbeat as she talks over the phone about her 3-year-old Preakness hopeful, Taj Mahal. “I picked him up late in the fall and took my time with him, and he’s really coming around.”As she says this, a little voice yells in the background. Russell has her two kids, ages 6 and 4, in the backseat. They’re hustling to her home track, Laurel Park in Maryland, which will host the Preakness Stakes this year while Pimlico in Baltimore undergoes a facelift. She’s trying to make it in time to see one of her other horses run in the first race of the day and to put in a claim on another one. It’s 11 a.m. on Mother’s Day.Advertisement