Maryland approves 187 days of racing; stakes slate finalized

The Maryland Racing Commission on Thursday approved requests for 187 days of racing in 2019. The Maryland Jockey Club also announced its stakes schedule through September.

The MJC tracks of Laurel Park and Pimlico will race 180 days in 2019 –168 programs at its Laurel Park base and a 12-day Preakness meet at Pimlico. The Maryland State Fair will hold its standard seven-day session from Aug. 23 through Labor Day, Sept. 2.

Laurel Park is scheduled to race nine more days in 2019 than in 2018. The Pimlico meet will be the same length as the past two years.

The 144th Preakness is May 18. Preakness tickets are on sale at www.preakness.com.

The stakes schedule for the Laurel Park winter-spring meet, which will run from Jan 1 through May 5, consists of 22 races worth a combined $2.5 million. The highlight of the season is the Feb. 16 Winter Carnival, which is topped by the Grade 3 Barbara Fritchie and Grade 3 General George.

The Fritchie was downgraded from a Grade 2 this year by the North American Graded Stakes Committee and has had its purse trimmed $50,000 to $250,000.

All but one of the winter stakes will be consolidated onto four bundled stakes programs.

Four $100,000 stakes will be held Jan. 12. The Fritchie and General George card has three other stakes.

A five-stakes program is scheduled for March 26 and a sevenstakes megacard, topped by the Federico Tesio for 3-year-olds and the Weber City Miss for 3-yearold fillies, will be held April 20.

The Tesio winner will receive a free berth in the Preakness, and the Weber City Miss is a Win and You’re In for the Black-Eyed Susan.

Although the full schedule for the Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred Championships is yet to be released, the MATCH Series will begin with three stakes on the April 20 card.

The Marshua Stakes, which was run Jan. 27, has been dropped from this year’s schedule and replaced by a $100,000 race named in honor of 85-yearold Hall of Fame trainer King Leatherbury.

Fittingly, the Leatherbury Stakes is a 5 1/2-furlong turf sprint. Leatherbury trained regional legend Ben’s Cat, who between 2010 and 2017 won 32 races while excelling in one-turn grass stakes.

The Maryland season will peak Preakness weekend at Pimlico with 16 stakes worth a combined $3.8 million. The Friday card is topped by the Grade 3, $300,000 Pimlico Special and the Grade 2, $250,000 Black-Eyed Susan.

There will be eight supporting stakes Preakness Day, including the $200,000 Chick Lang, which has been granted Grade 3 status this year. The $100,000 Searching, a new 1 1/2-mile turf stakes for fillies and mares, has been added to the schedule.

Charles Town schedule OK’d

The West Virginia Racing Commission on Thursday approved 164 days of racing at Charles Town for 2019 and signed off on the track’s unrestricted stakes schedule, including the Grade 2 Classic, which will have a reduced purse of $1 million.

The Charles Town Classic has become a point of contention between Charles Town management and the commission, which believes the funds can be used more effectively to benefit racing in the state.

On Jan. 23, the three-person commission refused to approve the 2018 Charles Town stakes schedule because they took issue with the race’s $1.2 million purse. After Gov. Jim Justice voiced his support for the Classic, the commission called a special session 13 days later and approved the stakes schedule.

On Thursday morning, commission chairman Jack Rossi and commissioners Ken Lowe and Tony Figaretti unanimously approved the Charles Town stakes schedule, but made clear they were still not totally supportive of the Classic purse even after its $200,000 reduction.

“A million dollars is a great deal of funding for a Grade 2 race,” Lowe said.

Figaretti questioned whether the national exposure of the 2018 Classic and the race’s handle justified the money spent.

“It was a $1.2 million race, was it successful?” Figaretti asked. “I think no.”

The Classic was won by Something Awesome against a field that also included Grade 1 winner Diversify. Total handle for the card was nearly $3.1 million, more than double the wagering for a typical spring Saturday.

Rossi said he agreed with Lowe’s and Figaretti’s points and hoped that next year Charles Town and the commission “could look at possible ways to enhance what they are doing with that money.”

The 11th running of the Classic will be April 20. A $1.5 million race from 2013 to 2015, it was worth $1.25 million in 2016 and 2017.

Erich Zimny, Charles Town’s vice president of racing, said the track’s signature event has paid off in a number of ways.

“Until this race was formed we had zero presence on the national racing scene,” Zimny said. “The Classic has moved our program so far forward. It’s a major reason why we are on track to set another handle-per-race record this year.

“If you do the same thing every night you lose relevance.”