Even now, 36 years later, it’s difficult to look away from the video.

The dark bay colt, winner of the Kentucky Derby but not favored in the Preakness Stakes, offers little initial resistance as his strapping chestnut rival glides by on the outside.

Maybe it was because his look so evoked that of Secretariat, but Easy Goer was the popular kid, the star quarterback, in 1989’s class of 3-year-old thoroughbreds. He had been favored in the Derby and was again at Pimlico Race Course, even though the more maneuverable Sunday Silence had easily bested him two weeks earlier at Churchill Downs.

As we return to the video, Easy Goer moves to the front, dropping early leader Houston. But Sunday Silence isn’t having it. Jockey Pat Valenzuela loops him on a furious move around the far turn, and the Derby champ passes Easy Goer to the outside.

In many races, that would be it, the decisive blow. This is something else.

As the rest of the field falls away, these great horses fire down the stretch inches apart, like brothers fighting for their share of a cramped bedroom. Easy Goer nudges back ahead on the rail. Then it’s Sunday Silence, pushing for the wire on the outside. “I can’t tell!” race announcer Dave Johnson shouts as they cross.

As we prepare for Saturday’s 150th running of the Preakness and the last at Pimlico Race Course before a major demolition and rebuild, it’s natural to think back on the most indelible editions of the Triple Crown series’ second jewel. We’ll rank 15, but none stands out more for those who witnessed it than Sunday Silence’s impossibly narrow 1989 win over his enduring foe, Easy Goer.

“Fantastic race. Fantastic,” said NBC analyst Randy Moss, who started attending Preakness in 1981. “For so many reasons, it was so compelling. You had East vs. West. You had old guard vs. new guard with [trainers ] Charlie Whittingham and Shug McGaughey. You even had media members who were affiliated with each horse. It was really cool.”

The clash of on-track styles proved most compelling of all, with Sunday Silence’s quickness and tenacity giving him the advantage around Pimlico’s tight turns, while Easy Goer’s power glide would allow him to win decisively three weeks later in the 1 1/2-mile Belmont Stakes. Their one-upmanship would carry all the way to the end-of-year Breeders’ Cup Classic, won by Sunday Silence.

But Sunday Silence and Easy Goer never battled more thrillingly than they did in Baltimore, where, as the great Sports Illustrated writer William Nack put it, nothing more than a “flared nostril” separated them.

2. Secretariat’s big move - 1973

It’s difficult to think of Secretariat as vulnerable, but recall that he had lost his final prep race for the 1973 Kentucky Derby and that his greatest rival, Sham, had hung with him much of the way in the first leg of the Triple Crown. Despite Secretariat’s record-setting time at Churchill Downs, there were still Sham partisans as the horses prepared to meet again in the Preakness.

Sham’s trainer, Frank “Pancho” Martin, was the loudest of those, telling anyone who’d listen that his horse had dislodged two teeth at the start of the Derby and would be the fitter, faster runner in Baltimore.

Secretariat wasted little time putting that notion to rest, rocketing from last to first with a sustained move none of his rivals could hope to answer. No horse before or since took the first turn at Pimlico like that.

Nack would forever recall Pimlico handicapper Clem Florio muttering to himself: “Horses don’t do what he did here today. They just don’t do that and win.”

Secretariat would run away from his rivals, all alone with history, in the Belmont Stakes. That’s the race casual fans remember. But for pure, freakish athleticism, he never topped his decisive Preakness surge.

3. Barbaro’s injury - 2006

Anyone who cares about thoroughbred racing will tell you “memorable” does not always equal good.

Never was that more the case than about 20 seconds into the 2006 Preakness, when classy Kentucky Derby champion Barbaro stopped running. “Barbaro has pulled up!” shouted Johnson, calling the race. “Oh, it’s his right hind leg that he is favoring, and Barbaro is out of it. Tragedy on the first turn.”

Unsettled fans at Pimlico hardly cheered as Bernardini swept to victory. Barbaro had broken three bones in his leg. The fight to save him carried on for eight months before he had to be euthanized.

4. The greatest Triple Crown rivalry - 1978

Great as he was, you can’t say Affirmed’s name without also calling out his most persistent nemesis, Alydar. They were that closely linked on the track and in the imagination. They had already squared off seven times before their duel at Pimlico, including in the Kentucky Derby, where Affirmed had held off favored Alydar’s late charge.

The Preakness took on a similar shape, with Affirmed controlling the pace from the front and Alydar coming up on his outside as they approached the far turn.

Again, Alydar charged as they neared the wire, pulling closer than he had in the Derby. Again, Affirmed never let him pass.

That was the nature of their rivalry. The Belmont Stakes would be closer still, with Affirmed besting Alydar by a nose to complete his Triple Crown.

“Any other year, Alydar would’ve won the Triple Crown,” Dan Rosenberg, who helped raise the runner-up, told The Baltimore Sun in 2015. “But people are wrong to assume the fastest horse always wins. Sometimes, it’s the one who can look the other in the eye and say, ‘You’re not passing me.’ I think Affirmed had a little bit more of that quality.”

5. Rachel Alexandra - 2009

No filly had won the Preakness since Nellie Morse in 1924. But Rachel Alexandra had defeated her female counterparts so resoundingly in the Kentucky Oaks (the day before the Derby) that her new owner, Jess Jackson, decided to make a little history, paying a $100,000 late fee to enter her in Preakness.

She took on Derby champion Mine That Bird with support from one of the most raucous crowds in Preakness history.

“How can you compare anything to Rachel’s 2009 Preakness?” her trainer, Steve Asmussen, said recently. “You know, obviously, [I’ve been] very fortunate to run horses on a high level, but I had never experienced anything like when we walked out of the barn with Rachel for the 2009 Preakness. Everybody was on her side. You go to the races and people have their favorites and who they’re rooting for. But running Rachel was different than anything I had done previously or since.”

She went off as a 9-5 favorite and swooped in from her outside post to take the early lead. Mine That Bird charged from the back of the pack but never could catch her.

“A magnificent victory, an exquisite filly and a thrill to see!” announcer Tom Durkin shouted when it was done.

6. The sky opens with a Triple Crown push hanging in the balance - 2015

Inclement weather has threatened many a Preakness, but never did the sky turn quite so charcoal gray as it did in the moments before the 2015 race. All of a sudden, sheets of rain pounded the dirt racing surface, creating a small stream along the rail and prompting patrons to use their folding chairs as head coverings.

Trainer Bob Baffert watched from inside, having no idea what this downpour might portend for Kentucky Derby winner American Pharoah.

The rain had let up by the time the horses broke from the gate, but the track remained a mud-slicked mess. Only American Pharoah seemed to glide above the muck, seizing the lead and holding it as his rivals crumbled far in his rearview.

Three weeks later, he would become the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years. In Baltimore, American Pharoah was the mud king.

7. Gallant Fox helps popularize the Triple Crown - 1930

He wasn’t the first horse to win the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes, but sportswriters didn’t start popularizing the term “Triple Crown” until after Gallant Fox pulled off the feat.

The Preakness was actually up first that year and Gallant Fox, racing for Maryland-based Belair Stud, zipped to the lead, holding on to win by 3/4 of a length.

His son, Omaha, would join him in the Triple Crown club five years later.

8. Three-way finish - 1997

For all the Triple Crown races Baffert has won, a special affection creeps into his voice when he reflects on Silver Charm. It’s not just that the colt gave him his first Kentucky Derby and Preakness victories. Baffert cherished Silver Charm’s gift for doing exactly what was needed to capture a race — no more, no less.

That trait was never on better display than in the 1997 Preakness, where Silver Charm bobbed his nose in front of Free House at the wire, with Captain Bodgit flying up on the outside.

Jockey Gary Stevens said it was Silver Charm’s competitive impulse to hold off Captain Bodgit that gave him the juice to pass Free House. “My horse started to get tired,” Stevens told The Baltimore Sun. “I didn’t know if I was going to get by Free House or not, but once Captain Bodgit came on — and he [Silver Charm] saw him — my horse put it in another gear.”

He did just enough.

9. A duel gets nasty - 1962

The image of competitive fury endures more than 60 years after Greek Money and Ridan battled down the stretch of the 88th Preakness. Baltimore Sun photographer Joseph A. DiPaola Jr. captured the exact moment when jockey Manuel Ycaza, aboard Ridan, reached out to impede rival John Rotz, aboard Greek Money.

Rotz would tell The New York Times a half-century later that Ycaza never actually touched him. That takes nothing from the ferocity of their battle, which Sports Illustrated’s Whitney Tower called “shockingly dangerous.”

Ridan and Greek Money traded the lead several times down the stretch, locked just as close together as Sunday Silence and Easy Goer would be in 1989. Rotz kept his focus despite Ycaza’s gesture, and Greek Money bobbed in front of Ridan at the wire. Despite photographic evidence to the contrary, Ycaza was the one who claimed interference afterward, to no avail.

“While both horses were battling with honest, all-out courage, only one of the jockeys let his highly competitive instincts run amuck,” Tower wrote.

10. Afleet Alex goes to his knees - 2005

Good luck finding a more athletic move in Preakness history.

Afleet Alex was making his move coming off the far turn when race leader Scrappy T abruptly swerved into his path. Afleet Alex’s knees and nose pitched toward the dirt. Calamity appeared inevitable.

“At this point, because I had a background in wrestling, I know how to fall and roll. I said, ‘Well, we’re going to fall,” jockey Jeremy Rose recalled recently. “We’re going stay as close to Alex as we can, because he’s going to block me.’ We had the whole field behind us. We were getting run over. It was just a matter how bad it was going to be.’”

Not only did Afleet Alex keep his feet and pop back up, he pulled away for an easy victory, one of the most visually stunning ever.

11. Codex controversy - 1980

D. Wayne Lukas was an upstart from the quarter horse world, dismissed as a “cowboy” by fellow Preakness trainers. Forty-five years later, he mostly remembers the sack of mail that greeted him the day after Codex gave him his first of seven Preakness wins.

The unfavorable responses outweighed the favorable, Lukas said recently, chuckling. Many viewers felt Codex’s jockey, Angel Cordero, had interfered with the filly Genuine Risk, depriving her of a chance at the Triple Crown after she’d beaten the boys in the Kentucky Derby. Her owners agreed, formally appealing the stewards’ ruling of no interference.

Lukas heard his horse and rider accused of “bullying” more than a few times. “A Lady Mugged,” read a Washington Post headline on the race.

But the Maryland Racing Commission affirmed the stewards’ decision, and Lukas had his win.

12. Citation’s greatness - 1948

His victory at Pimlico was almost casual. Citation led wire-to-wire, cruising home 5 1/2 lengths ahead of Vulcan’s Forge.

It’s memorable because it was part of arguably the greatest season any 3-year-old ever had. Citation ran 20 times that year and won 19, taking each Triple Crown race by a greater margin than the one before it. He was on such a roll that he squeezed a track record victory in the Jersey Derby between his triumphs in the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes. At a time when horse racing was central to the nation’s sporting interests, his feats ranked with those of Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio in baseball and Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson in boxing. It would be 25 years before another horse, Secretariat, won the Triple Crown.

Eddie Arcaro won six Preaknesses, more than any other jockey, and he did not hesitate to call Citation the best horse he ever climbed aboard. “He was so fast he scared me,” Arcaro said.

13. Justify emerges from the fog - 2018

The rooftop press box at Pimlico offers one of the great vantages for viewing a major American sporting event, with clear sight lines to the other side of the track.

That was not the case in 2018, when a thick, low-hanging fog made it impossible to see from one side of the Preakness infield to the other. Not even NBC’s high-powered cameras could capture every stride of a hotly contested battle. “I’m looking at the shot you are,” race caller Larry Collmus said at one point. “So we’ll see what happens here.”

The setting ultimately added a mythic quality to Justify’s performance as the huge colt thundered out of the mist coming around the far turn, nose-to-nose with his closest pursuer, Good Magic. “Justify, he’s unstoppable!” Collmus boomed as the soon-to-be Triple Crown winner held off a pair of late chargers.

14. Smarty Jones - 2004

Pennsylvania-bred Smarty Jones was one of racing’s great populist heroes, bringing thousands of fans to his workouts at what was then called Philadelphia Park, inspiring schoolchildren to write letters of support and bringing the term “Smarty Party” into his sport’s lexicon.

The people’s horse won the Kentucky Derby and then peaked at Pimlico, going off as the odds-on favorite and winning the Preakness by an astonishing 11 1/2 lengths.

“That horse is as good as any horse I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some good ones,” Stevens, who rode the runner-up, told The Baltimore Sun. “‘Smarty’ really reminded me of Secretariat the way he pulled away.”

15. A filly denies Baffert at empty Pimlico - 2020

They ran the race in October, after the Belmont Stakes and the Kentucky Derby. Not a single fan cheered from the grandstand or the infield. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, everything about the 2020 Preakness felt weird.

The race itself was pretty great.

Baffert sought his eighth Preakness win with Derby champ Authentic. Rival trainer Kenny McPeek took him on with a tough filly named Swiss Skydiver. They went at it down the stretch, and she won by a neck to become the first filly Preakness champion since Rachel Alexandra.

“She’s just a real bull,” McPeek gushed. “She loves what she does every day.”