BALTIMORE - Like any true A-lister, he kept the masses waiting for hours.

Then Big Brown made his grand entrance.

Accompanied from the airport by a police escort with sirens flashing, the dazzling colt pulled into Pimlico Race Course shortly after 8 p.m. Wednesday and headed for the prime spot of real estate on the grounds - the corner barn occupied each year by the winner of the Kentucky Derby.

For added flair, two UPS trucks flanked the convoy as it rolled through the gates, Those boxy, brown trucks had never made a delivery quite like this one.

Fans, horsemen, the media - everyone, really - had waited impatiently for Big Brown. The entire sport has its Triple Crown hopes pinned on the star who claimed the racing stage for himself following a 4¾-length victory at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May.

Now he has the fanfare that goes along with the life of a Derby winner and the heavy favorite for the Preakness. It will continue as long as he wins today and moves on to the Belmont in three weeks.

Right now, it’s good to be the king.

“He gets love all the time,” trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. said.

And why not? The rest of the horses in the field have endured a week being treated like lowly subjects, their names recognizable to few outside their inner circle. Only Gayego decided to follow Big Brown from the Derby, where he was 17th. So anticipated was Big Brown’s arrival that when a horse van showed up just before 8 p.m., the media horde scurried into position.

False alarm.

The van was carting a pair of other entrants, Racecar Rhapsody and Tres Borrachos, and once that became clear, no one cared.

When Big Brown showed up nearly three hours late because of bad weather in Louisville, Ky., all that was missing was the red carpet.

“Big Brown’s a serious horse,” said Ken McPeek, who trains Racecar Rhapsody.

The Big Brown bravado is what separates the leadup to Preakness from the Derby. The celebrities on Millionaire’s Row at Churchill Downs are as much the story before the race as the horses that run for the roses. What’s Jessica Simpson wearing? Where will the Playmates party? Hey, isn’t that O.J. Simpson?

At Pimlico, the Derby champ is the main event.

“The minute he arrived,” said Chick Lang, Pimlico’s former general manager, “he was a celebrity.”

Dutrow loves the spotlight and he’s added plenty of his own hype with brash boasts that Big Brown is the horse to beat today. No taking it “one race at a time” with Dutrow. He’s already professed to dreaming about the Triple Crown and how awesome it would feel to sweep the Derby, Preakness and Belmont for the first time in 30 years.

“I believe he enjoys the attention,” Dutrow said, referring to his star pupil. “I believe he likes meeting new people.”

While other horses around the barn have largely been ignored, Big Brown was the only one with a watch party in the grandstand during his workouts. Fans flocked to his early morning gallops - even coming out in rain and slop.