As the horses crossed the finish line in this year’s Preakness Stakes, it was almost time to close the chapter on Pimlico’s historic facilities. Minutes later bugler Jari Villanueva played Auld Lang Syne to send the track off to its future.

There was, however, still one race at Old Hilltop yet to come.

Eight Arabians soon filed onto the track, their smaller statures, dished faces, and high-arcing tails marking them as distinct from the Thoroughbreds that had comprised the rest of the card. Yet, when the gates opened, they’d put on no less of a show. 

This was the UAE President Cup Stakes, a Grade 1 and among the premier races for Arabian horses in the United States.

In the outside post position was regal Diamond Gem AA, sent off by bettors as the heavy 2-5 favorite, and in the irons was Carol Cedeno, a familiar face on both the Mid-Atlantic and Arabian racing circuits. She’d come down from riding at Delaware Park earlier in the day, and now was poised to win a big prize in this final race.

Though she had grown up around horses in Puerto Rico, Cedeno first got the racing bug around age 12, when she visited the racetrack to see her cousin, who had a few horses there.

“[My cousin] told me I could be a jockey, since I was little,” she remembers. “So he took me one day with my dad, and I decided I did want to be a jockey.”

She began her riding career in Puerto Rico, then came to the U.S. to ride in 2007. Cedeno started first at Philadelphia Park and has had stints in New York and Florida – but it’s been Delaware Park where her career has truly flourished, having won six riding titles at the Stanton oval since 2014.

Her success has come with both Thoroughbreds and Arabians, and she’s a mainstay in the latter breed’s biggest races in the U.S. Indeed, she’s won at a 32% clip with Arabians in her career, including 17-of-33 in 2018 (52%) and 15 of 32 (47%) the following year.

“She listens, and her work ethic is amazing. She really tries to get into a horse’s head to get the most out of them,” says trainer Lynn Ashby, for whom Cedeno regularly rides. (Like Cedeno, Ashby has also found great success with Arabians, though has since pivoted to Thoroughbreds since Delaware stopped carding races for the breed in 2021.) 

The President Cup on Preakness Day would be Cedeno’s second time aboard Diamond Gem AA, trained by Jerenesto Torrez for Joseph and Betty Gillis – they were beaten just a neck in a Grade 1 at Gulfstream in December – and the first at Pimlico. The last time the two had met in Baltimore was the 2023 edition of the race, where Diamond Gem AA was victorious, and Cedeno lengths behind aboard the third-place horse.

Today, though, they were teamed up once again, and bettors seemed to think they were unstoppable. Perhaps they were.

“He’s super good – I don’t really have to do anything with him. He just takes me there,” Cedeno says.

The two broke cleanly and sat a few lengths off the pace through the first turn and backstretch. Arabians are bred for distance, not speed, and are slower than Thoroughbreds – but with an elite horse like Diamond Gem AA, Cedeno says it doesn’t feel much different.

“I think he likes that track,” she adds. “He’s been winning, but the way he goes [at Pimlico], I really think he likes the track.”

Cedeno gave the gelding his cue after a half-mile, and by the time six furlongs had passed, they were six lengths in front and still widening. She kept him to task through the stretch, and the President Cup was theirs for the taking – 14 ½ lengths ahead of their nearest rival.

The Preakness might have been the day’s spotlight, but the final stretch run at the old Pimlico will always belong to Diamond Gem AA and Carol Cedeno.

She was so caught up in the race and subsequent thrill of victory that her special place in history hadn’t even dawned on her until someone mentioned it in a post-race interview. Now it seems like it’s a memory she’ll hold onto.

“It feels amazing,” Cedeno says, reflecting on the moment. “I was so happy to win that race.”