If this is how it ends for the Preakness Stakes at old Pimlico, at least the final race was a thriller.

Kentucky Derby runner-up Journalism endured a brutal bump at the top of the stretch Saturday and collected himself under jockey Umberto Rispoli to surge forward in the last 30 yards and pull off a close win the middle jewel of the Triple Crown.

The 3-year-old son of 2007 Preakness winner Curlin came up 1 1/2 lengths short in his Derby bid over a sloppy track, and the contact in the closing moments gave trainer Michael McCarthy some doubt about their second attempt in the series.

“When I saw that, I thought it was another solid effort and, unfortunately, he was going to come up just a little bit short,” he said. “For sure he got the worst of it. Hats off to Umberto and Journalism for persevering. I think today you saw what it takes to be a champion.”

Rispoli said Journalism made “himself keep going.”

“It’s all about him,” he said. “It’s a privilege to ride a horse like him.”

As the debate over the spacing of the Triple Crown races rages on once more, thanks to Derby winner Sovereignty bypassing the series’ middle jewel, Journalism capably handled the two-week turnaround and continued the winning ways he’s shown throughout his 3-year-old campaign.

It probably helped to return to a fast track, similar to conditions he ran on in his two previous wins this year, the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes and Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby.

Journalism encountered the slop and 18 other foes at Churchill Downs, and while the 7-2 favorite seemed to handle it well, pushing for the front of the pack on the far turn and locking into a stretch duel with Sovereignty, he was ultimately passed.

There was no getting past him Saturday.

At the start, Journalism sat close to the rail while No. 8 Clever Again moved to the front as the field passed the wire for the first time. No. 9 Gosger sat in second place just to the outside of Clever Again, while No. 1 Goal Oriented was positioned just to the leader’s inside.

The order remained mostly unchanged along the backstretch, aside from No. 6 River Thames moving up to third in the three-path.

The field’s spacing tightened near the end of the far turn as Journalism moved up alongside Goal Oriented, just behind Gosger and Clever Again.

Coming down the lane, Goal Oriented bumped Journalism into Clever Again, causing Goal Oriented to lose his stride, Journalism to swerve and Goal Oriented to straighten.

At that point, Gosger was charging for home with what looked like a clear path to victory. But Journalism, with Rispoli going to the crop to urge the talented colt, continued with a late burst that propelled him over the line in front of Gosger by half a length.

It gave McCarthy his second Preakness win and first since Rombauer in 2021.

“In the back of my mind I thought we’d be 2-for-2 here [in the Triple Crown races], but I’m just happy to get one of these,” he said. “They’re very, very difficult races to win.”

And so ended thoroughbred racing at historic Pimlico Race Course as we know it. Horses have run and champions have been crowned at this site almost every year since 1870, and it’s all thanks to a dinner party in Saratoga Springs, New York, two years prior.

Maryland Gov. Oden Bowie, a well-known horseman, was present when one of the attendees proposed a two-mile race for 3-year-old colts and fillies to be held in the summer of 1870, as a way of marking the occasion.

Bowie suggested a then-massive purse of $15,000 and requested the race be held in his home state at a new track. That’s how Pimlico came to be, and three years later, the track rolled out its first spring meet with a new stakes race for 3-year-olds named after the winner of the first Dinner Party Stakes, Preakness.

The race predated the Kentucky Derby by two years, though it was also something of a nomad in the early going. The Preakness moved to Morris Park in New York for the 1890 running, then wasn’t held for three years. From 1894 to 1908, it was held at a different New York site, Gravesend Race Track.

In 1909, the race came back to Baltimore, and it’s been run here ever since. Starting in the 1930s with Gallant Fox, racing writers popularized the concept of the Triple Crown series, celebrating any horse that could sweep the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes as a 3-year-old.

Although the dates of the races and order haven’t always been the same, the series has been the benchmark of immortality for the greatest American thoroughbreds and remains the most popular group of races with the public. Only 13 horses have completed the feat.

Over the years, the layout at Pimlico changed several ways until it became stubbornly stuck in time. The Victorian-style grandstand burned down in 1894. A new one was constructed and remained in place until 1954, when the then-modern grandstand that still sits on the site was opened close to the finish line.

Sections of what became known as the “Old Grandstand” remain — a 2017 Maryland Stadium Authority study found parts of the 19th century structure were still in place — but the seating area was condemned in 2019 because it had “reached the end of its useful life."

A new clubhouse building opened in 1960, but the grand Victorian clubhouse, one of the most magnificent buildings on the site with its sweeping veranda and cupola, was destroyed by a fire in 1966.

Very little has changed since, and that’s been seen for years as one of the complex’s greatest detriments as the list of infrastructure failures and crumbling architectural features built up.

Going back decades, there’s been conversations about rebuilding the track or even taking the Preakness south to Laurel Park and turning this land into something other than a venue for horses to run. Those efforts continually stalled until the state last year approved an ambitious plan to take over day-to-day racing and move the middle jewel of the Triple Crown to Laurel Park in 2026 so a new track can be built on this land.

In the coming days, archivists will pack up some of the historic photos, paintings, trophies and other memorabilia that have been housed here for who knows how long. Six weeks later, the demolition will begin.

And these buildings, witnesses to so much racing history — Secretariat’s record-setting win, Easy Goer’s duel with Sunday Silence and American Pharoah’s gliding trip through the slop en route to ending a 37-year Triple Crown drought — will be brought down.

For some, it’s long past time for the change. For others, looking out at the track and seeing something other than those looming structures just won’t feel the same.

Still basking in his colt’s gutsy effort, McCarthy called back to Easy Goer and Sunday Silence going punch for punch in 1989.

“I remember where I was watching the race that day. Things kind of come full circle,” he said. “Will be sad to see this place go, but we’ll try to get back here next year, whichever locale it’s at.”