Vote backs facility, center for Maryland horse racing
A path forward for Maryland thoroughbred racing depended on the votes of 13 state senators, and all they could express were reservations.
Why were they scrambling to amend this complex legislation on the last day of the 2024 General Assembly session? Why would the state continue to pay millions of dollars to The Stronach Group for the right to run Maryland’s most hallowed race, the Preakness Stakes? Why fund this plan to save Pimlico Race Course when previous ones had stalled as the venerable track continued to crumble?
“I’m taking a leap of faith with this vote,” said Sen. J.B. Jennings, a Republican representing Baltimore and Harford counties, before making the motion that would
send the bill up for consideration by the full Senate. It passed by a 41-6 vote later Monday, and the amended bill agreed to
by the House of Delegates is expected to be signed into law by Democratic Gov. Wes Moore.
With that legislative gritting of teeth, a new day dawned for Maryland racing, which will be consolidated at a rebuilt Pimlico and a new training center funded by $400 million in state bonds. Starting next year, the sport will be operated by a new state-created nonprofit after more than two decades under various Canadian corporations owned by the Stronach family.
“I cannot overstate what a historic moment this is for Maryland racing,” said Alan Foreman, longtime general counsel to the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association and a member of the Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority, which crafted the latest redevelopment plan. “Building a brand new facility, a brand new training center, being able to reposition ourselves for the future — the impact it will have on this state, on the Park Heights Community and the racing industry as a whole, it is extremely satisfying.”
In 2020, the legislature approved a plan to redevelop Pimlico and its sister track, Laurel Park, with $375 million in bonds, but that effort collapsed because of unforeseen tax burdens, dire structural failings at Laurel and knotty negotiations between Stronach and local officials. The General Assembly created the Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority (MTROA) last year to untangle this mess, and Moore tapped Baltimore attorney Greg Cross to lead it.
At a Senate committee hearing last week, Cross told legislators the state industry and Pimlico were at a do-or-die point. “If we don’t do this now, we’re at an end,” he said. “This is the last chance.”
He described a “falling down” Pimlico with no working kitchen or elevator. With no prospect of Stronach funding largescale improvements, Cross said the state had reached “the very last minute” to create a permanent home worthy of the Preakness.
Now, he and fellow board members are optimistic that
wrecking balls could swing by the end of this year.
“All the things that previously complicated the plan have now been eliminated,” Foreman said. “There are no roadblocks.”
Maryland will join New York, which is spending $455 million to rebuild Belmont Park, which hosts the third leg of the Triple Crown, on the short list of states investing serious money in an industry that’s struggling in much of the country.
“I think the MTROA … was pretty clear that the structure of Maryland racing and the economics don’t really merit private investment in the facilities and the events,” said Craig Fravel, executive vice chair of racing and gaming for The Stronach Group. “So I think for the government to be involved, the way it has been for the Orioles and the Ravens, is entirely the right thing to do and helps sustain the tax base of the racing industry in Maryland while keeping local interest and control of the major event, which is the Preakness. It’s a win-win for all.”
The plan calls for Stronach to donate Pimlico to the racing authority. The company will retain Laurel Park, which, in a few years, will no longer host races for
the first time in a century. Pimlico will host roughly 140 racing days each year.
The Preakness will be run at Laurel in 2026, while the new Pimlico is under construction, with the hope that the state’s signature race will return to its rehabilitated home in 2027.
For the intellectual property related to Preakness weekend each May, the nonprofit will annually pay Stronach a licensing fee of $3 million — plus 2% of the total money wagered over the weekend. In recent years, gross handle has been about $100 million, meaning the nonprofit will likely pay Stronach about $5 million annually.
Under the plan, the state will issue $400 million in bonds — at least $250 million of which will go toward Pimlico and at least $110 million of which will go toward a training center in either Bowie, Woodbine or Aberdeen. Those bonds will then be paid off over decades using at least $17 million a year.
Given the alarm bells from Cross and others who helped craft the plan, powerful legislators, including Sen. President Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat, questioned why such a complex bill was not advanced for discussion
before the last three weeks of the session.
“There’s a lot of interest and … it’s one of the reasons I was slightly frustrated that the bill came so late, because there are a lot of strong feelings about this issue,” Ferguson said after it passed in the House.
Foreman said the bill simply could not be created before Cross hammered out the complex agreement with Stronach, a process that dragged into March even though the track owner was on board with the vision.
Once that hurdle was cleared, legislators from both chambers of the General Assembly raised questions about the economic viability of a state-organized track operator.
To address those concerns, the Senate added an amendment that says the racing industry will cover any operating losses at Pimlico from its purse account.
“I’m glad to bet on ourselves, but there’s a reason that the industry has been struggling, and we can only do so much,” Ferguson said. “It’s not a blank check, and so this caps the liability for the state.”
MTROA members say the nonprofit, to be created
later this year with the New York Racing Association as a leading model, can do better than Stronach at running an economically viable industry. Changes are expected at the Preakness, which has gone from a profit engine to a money loser in recent years as crowds have dwindled and Stronach has spent large sums on prominent musical acts such as Bruno Mars and Jack Harlow.
“We have worked the numbers very hard,” Cross told skeptical legislators.
Stronach officials and the state’s horsemen have not always co-existed harmoniously, with horsemen and breeders warning of a “catastrophic emergency” facing the industry last spring if the track owners did not create a safer racing surface at Laurel Park.
Underlying that conflict was a sense from horsemen that the company was not fully committed to running a first-class racing operation in Maryland.
Though Stronach officials said that wasn’t the case, Foreman cheered the new plan as an opportunity for the industry to “bet on its future and best control its destiny.”
Fravel, who worked under a similar model at California’s Del Mar racetrack, agreed there are upsides
to the nonprofit approach. “Hopefully, what it will do is encourage community investment and corporate involvement from the sponsorship standpoint,” he said. “I think all of that will be enhanced by the fact that it’s local ownership.”
Beyond the racing world, community leaders in Park Heights hailed the Pimlico plan as key to their broader redevelopment efforts, especially after the bill was amended to funnel 10% of track profits into community development projects, to give a $10 million grant for workforce housing to the nonprofit Park Heights Renaissance and to add a representative from Park Heights Renaissance as a voting member on the MTROA board.
“I support keeping Pimlico and the Preakness here in the state and in Park Heights,” said Yolanda Jiggetts, CEO of Park Heights Renaissance.
“But with the inclusion of some type of specific language that commits financial contributions … that will move the needle on priority projects outside the racetrack.”