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Kegasus Comes Home: How An Iconic Preakness Stakes Figure Ended Up In Northern Kentucky
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- Kegasus Comes Home: How An Iconic Preakness Stakes Figure Ended Up In Northern Kentucky
You just had to be there for it all to make sense.
You had to be a horse racing fan in the early 2010s, preferably one with active social media accounts. You had to be in Baltimore, Md., on the third Saturday in May, sweltering under the unrelenting sun and pounding speakers in the Preakness Stakes infield. You had to see him, meet him, experience him and the little universe created around him, to understand why a sweaty man with no shirt, long hair, nipple piercings, a vague Shakespearian accent, and the back half of a felt horse costume trailing behind him had such a command over followers of the sport of a certain vintage.
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But that was the power of Kegasus, the half-man half-party animal created in a marketing agency's fever dream to represent the InfieldFest, the music festival and general source of debauchery that occurred in the middle of the Triple Crown's second jewel.
The reign of Kegasus was brief, with the marketing campaign only lasting from 2011 to 2012, but nary a Preakness has passed in the decade and a half since then where the quick-witted centaur's memory hasn't been conjured up by someone that remembers.
Even so, the legend of Kegasus was mostly driven underground after his time in the sun. We caught up with John C. Bailey, the actor who portrayed the front half of Kegasus, in 2017 , but the back half was not as easily found.
That's the way it remained until Pimlico's date with a wrecking ball following the 2025 Preakness, making way for a reimagined, updated version of Old Hilltop. Before the demolition crews came, a group of diehards dubbed the Pimlico Preservation Project were allowed to scour the grounds to save any memorabilia they could from the 150-plus-year-old track and sell it to promote Thoroughbred aftercare.
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Somewhere within the bowels of the facility, the group found a large, musty box containing the missing Kegasus costume. It hadn't seen the light of day in years, and the wear and tear from two years of duty following Bailey around from media appearances, pub crawls, and every point of the infield was apparent, but even through all of that, the suit remained relatively intact.
Some time later, Sallyellen Hurst was on the "At The Races With Steve Byk" radio program discussing her finds when she mentioned coming across the missing piece of Kegasus.
Kevin McCullough of Edgewood, Ky., a lifelong horse racing fan and a daily listener of Byk's program, was tuned in for the interview, and the his interest was piqued immediately when he heard of the costume's availability, in exchange for a check to an aftercare organization. He knew what he had to do.
"My friends and I went to the University of Kentucky together, and in 1991, all three of us did a did a Triple Crown pilgrimage, so we went to each race that year, the Derby, Preakness, and Belmont," said McCullough, a commercial lender by trade. "It's one of those times where you're right out of college and you don't have any money, so you're sort of slumming it. We happened to go to the Preakness Infield that year in '91, and obviously, Kegasus wasn't there then, and when the 10-year anniversary of us doing that rolled around in 2001, we did it again, so we went to the whole Triple Crown together, and we did it 10 years alter in 2011 when Kegasus was there.
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"All my friends, we thought it was the funniest thing ever," he continued. "We thought it was the most clever thing to bring people back to the Preakness infield. At that point in time, we had all been establishing our jobs and had disposable income, so we had real seats at Pimlico that were very good, but we said, 'No, we've got to spend at least half the day in the infield to witness Kegasus.'"
Kegasus (left) and trainer Doug O'Neill at the Pimlico stakes barn
Digital media was still in its relative infancy when McCullough met Kegasus in 2011, compared to modern times when one can capture professional-quality photos and video from their phone. He didn't have much to remember his encounter with the gregarious character besides the running jokes shared between his group of friends, and as a collector of racing memorabilia, McCullough saw an opportunity to fill that void.
He contacted Hurst on social media stating his intentions for the costume, but not fully expecting to hear back. A week later, he saw a notification on his phone informing him that the costume was still available. They negotiated a donation to Mid Atlantic Horse Rescue, then they needed to negotiate how to get an object the size of half a horse from the East Coast to northern Kentucky when standard shipping methods would have cost a fortune.
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The answer was to haul it in a van made for a full horse. Hurst made a few calls, and found an empty stall on a Brook Ledge Transportation trailer shipping from Laurel Park to the company's base in Lexington, Ky., that the operation donated to the cause.
The massive box was wrapped in plastic and loaded onto the van, in eyesight of the same homestretch turn at Laurel Park that served as a temporary host to the Preakness just a month prior while the Pimlico rebuild continues. McCullough met the rig in Lexington with his truck, and the box took up a sizable portion of the bed.
"When I told my friends that I had a line on somehow acquiring Kegasus, they fell off their chairs," McCullough said. "They couldn't believe it. I collect a lot of horse racing memorabilia, and it'd be the greatest piece of horse racing memorabilia that anyone has because everyone knows who he is."
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So, what does one do with the rear half of a 15-year-old centaur costume once it's out of the box and in your driveway?
"That's a great question," McCullough said with a chuckle. "I have three kids, and when I unboxed Kegasus, my 13-year-old daughter immediately wanted to try it on, so I have a picture of her."
Beyond the photo opportunities, McCullough has taken it upon himself to become the mascot's historian, building a website dedicated to his legend before and during the Preakness, the character's media coverage, the costume's journey to Kentucky, and its present and future.
"I've been touching on it and working on it, not that I care if it gets any action or whatever," he said, "but I just want to live to perpetuate his story into history, you know?"
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As for the future of Kegasus, McCullough notes on the website that the costume would be made available for rentals and appearances for interested customers' Triple Crown parties.
Kegasus might not have seen his last Preakness after all.
Kevin McCullough with the Kegasus costumeCourtesy Kevin McCullough
This story was originally published by Paulick Report on Jul 3, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Paulick Report as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
