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Pour out some Natty Boh, Preakness Stakes fans, because booze-soaked InfieldFest mascot Kegasus is no more:
Kegasus appears destined for the half-human, half-horse farm in the sky, as the Preakness Stakes will likely move away from the party animal brand.
While the centaur’s demise isn’t certain, the Baltimore Business Journal reports that he probably won’t be back for a third year at the races. “I think Kegasus has gone to the islands,” Jockey Club President Tom Chuckas tells the Business Journal.
DCist thinks that’s a good thing, but it’s worth noting that Chuckas wasn’t so quick to dismiss Kegasus back in 2011, when the creature first appeared in ads for the race. “Kegasus speaks directly to our InfieldFest demographic with his no-nonsense personality and total embodiment of a good time,” he told City Desk at the time.
Is Chuckas saying that InfieldFest is no longer about a good time? With Pitbull and Macklemore performing, that certainly can’t be true. So why not keep Kegasus, who, despite his second-hand Eastbound and Down schtick, at least had a sort of Eastern antiquity flair?
In closing, Kegasus was a man-horse of the people. In the unaltered words of one Kegasus fan on Youtube: “Dudes a centuar, and he calls himself kegsus ROFLMAO :)”.
Photo by Matt Dunn