150-Year-Old Home Of Preakness Stakes In Limbo As Much-Needed Overhaul Stalls

A major overhaul of Pimlico Race Course, one of the pillars of horse racing's Triple Crown and a key economic driver for Baltimore, was expected to have started already after securing state funding in early 2020.

Yet as the nation's top thoroughbreds, such as Kentucky Derby winner Mage, arrived at the track ahead of Saturday's Preakness Stakes, Pimlico remained in the poor condition it has festered in for nearly two decades. And residents of the struggling Park Heights neighborhood that surrounds the track haven't received the full investment they were promised.

"It's been an exceptionally frustrating couple of years. And we've had to deal with a variety of issues in matters that are not directly related to Pimlico and Park Heights, but have a profound impact on being able to move forward," said William H. Cole IV, the former head of Baltimore Development Corp. and Maryland's horse racing facility negotiator.

After decades of debate and study, the Maryland General Assembly in March 2020 passed the Maryland Racing and Community Development Act of 2020. The plan called for the state to issue $375M in bonds and provide up to $30M in cash to overhaul Maryland's two thoroughbred tracks, Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course.

It also stipulated the Preakness Stakes — which the Maryland Stadium Authority previously estimated was responsible for 620 full- and part-time jobs and $5M in taxes annually, with $2.7M of those funds going to Baltimore — must stay at Pimlico. Additionally, it provided for upgrades at Laurel Park that turned it into a hub for Maryland's $5B horse racing industry by improving racing and training facilities.  

The Maryland Stadium Authority has also called for the development of a mixed-use district around Pimlico to coincide with the overhaul of the racecourse, proposing a plan in 2018 for more than 1M SF of commercial, residential, hospitality and medical space.

But three years after funding was approved, the overhaul of the racecourse hasn't begun. 

In the meantime, conditions at Pimlico, affectionately known as Old Hill Top, continue to worsen. They have deteriorated to the point some worry the track, which first hosted the race in 1873, may be forced to pass on hosting future Preakness Stakes.  

"Given that a portion of the grandstand is out of service and internal mechanicals failing, it's a real concern," Cole said, after being asked whether Pimlico may be at risk of losing the Preakness if work doesn't start soon. 

"We don't have the luxury of time anymore. In my mind, there must be some path forward before the next legislative session," said Cole, who also serves as a board member of the Maryland Stadium Authority.

This week, Alan Rifkin, the attorney for the track’s owner, the Maryland Jockey Club, told WBAL 1090 AM's Jayne Miller the Racing and Community Development Act of 2020 "is not feasible any longer."

That is primarily due to inflation, soaring interest rates and a change in federal tax law, Rifkin told WBAL. When the 2020 plan passed, the state expected to issue $17M in bonds annually to cover the cost of upgrades based on the presumption of 2.5% interest rates, he said. But today those bonds hold a 5.5% interest rate. He said these changing dynamics mean there is between $160M and $170M less available to overhaul both tracks. 

"Interest rates are going up, and there is not enough money to do both Pimlico and Laurel. So, consequently, the legislature last year ... said to the industry prioritize Pimlico," Rifkin told WBAL. 

Cole agreed with Rifkin's assessment that complications redeveloping Laurel Park and the "finite amount of money" make the initial plan impossible to fulfill. 

"Right now, you have two mile-oval tracks that are antiquated, and that's being polite. They're well beyond their useful life cycle. They need millions upon millions of dollars of renovation or replacement," Cole said.

As of now, Rifkin told WBAL, stakeholders are coalescing around a plan to improve Pimlico as Maryland's premier horse racing venue that hosts not only the Preakness Stakes but additional marquee racing events like the Jim McKay Maryland Millions and potentially the Breeders Cup. 

However, Pimlico lacks space to host the additional training facilities the horse racing industry needs. As a result, stakeholders are searching for a suitable site within an hour of Pimlico to house those training facilities.

"This is all about creating a more sustainable long-term industry that I heard very clearly from the elected leaders that we're dealing with ... the legislature does not want to have to come back and address this issue 10 years from now," Cole said. "So what we're all working on is more generational than a decade at a time, which seems to be an issue that bubbles up in Maryland literally every 10 years."

Some local leaders, like Delegate Samuel "Sandy" Rosenberg, remained confident that delays in renovating Pimlico don't endanger holding future Preakness Stakes at the track.

He attributed his confidence to Gov. Wes Moore this year signing a bill into law that created the Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority. The legislature created the commission to steer the development of racing and training facilities in Maryland.

The law requires the authority to provide the legislature with recommendations on what steps need to be taken to move the upgrades forward at Pimlico, Rosenberg said. 

In some ways, he said, the decision to forgo overhauling Laurel Park benefits Pimlico because the state no longer needs to worry about juggling two projects simultaneously and can focus on Pimlico.   

"That's ... certainly less of a cost, even with inflation, and so on, then renovating two tracks," Rosenberg said. 

Rosenberg also pointed to multiple projects that have gotten underway in the neighborhood around Pimlico, including a housing development for seniors and families and a library branch, even as the overhaul of the track itself remains in limbo. 

"You have things already going on outside the track perimeter, and so that's an encouraging sign," he added. "There's still lots of issues that have to be dealt with, but in the Park Heights community that's a very encouraging sign."

Abandoning the redevelopment of Laurel Park to focus on consolidating around Pimlico, and whether it can be done quickly enough to ensure the track can host the Preakness Stakes, is the latest turn in a decades-long saga — a saga that has regularly pitted the two tracks against each other, like War Admiral and Seabiscuit, who ran their famous 1938 match race at Pimlico.

For most of the past two decades, Laurel Park, closer to the wealthier D.C. metro area in Anne Arundel County, filled the role of 1937 Triple Crown winner War Admiral. Laurel had the size and the money. 

Meanwhile, Pimlico, the smaller track near urban neighborhoods plagued by disinvestment, filled in for Seabiscuit, a horse The Guardian described in a 2013 article as "a lazy, underachieving three-year-old."

Since the Stronach Group purchased Pimlico and Laurel in 2002 from Magna Entertainment, the company and its subsidiary, the Maryland Jockey Club, openly flirted with moving the Preakness Stakes to Laurel Park.

The track owner championed constructing a "super track" at Laurel Park, the epicenter of Maryland's horse racing industry. Supporters of that proposal touted its potential to boost interest in the sport as horse racing's popularity flagged.     

Ahead of the 2017 Preakness Stakes, The Washington Post published a profile of then Stronach Group President Belinda Stronach. The newspaper called Pimlico Belinda Stronach's "problem child."

"The track is falling apart, so old that a teardown may be smarter than a renovation," the Post article said. "Not to mention the traffic jams around city streets in a neighborhood that has, to be generous, seen better days."

Belinda Stronach, in the same article, said most people in Maryland's horse racing industry preferred to race at Laurel. While delicately avoiding questions about moving the Preakness Stakes from Baltimore, she didn't close the barn door either.  

“I’m confident that whatever outcome, it’s going to take us forward,” Stronach said. “It’s going to take the race forward, it’s going to take the experience forward, and I think it’s going to be good for racing in the state of Maryland.”

Tim Ritvo, the Stronach Group's chief operating officer at the time, stoked those flames again the following year when The Baltimore Sun reported he said the company wouldn't invest any additional money in Pimlico. He added that he wanted to see the race moved to Laurel Park because it offered an "elevated" experience. 

Controversy and sore feelings over the tracks' future continued to ferment. The fact the Maryland Jockey Club pumped most of its share of state gambling revenue into upgrades at Laurel while Pimlico suffered grandstand closures and power outages rankled Baltimore elected officials.  

Meanwhile, city officials warned residents should consider plans for the track site after it left, or the site would deteriorate into what former state Sen. Lisa Gladden called "the world's largest open-air drug market."  

In the interim, the Maryland Stadium Authority conducted studies and issued reports assessing the feasibility of upgrading Pimlico to retain the Preakness Stakes.

In December 2018, the Maryland Stadium Authority released the second part of a study that estimated it would cost $424M to overhaul Pimlico to continue hosting the Preakness Stakes.  

Former Mayor Catherine Pugh hailed the findings and touted the proposal's capacity to transform the surrounding Park Heights neighborhood and "create thousands of jobs for residents," resulting "in more than $800M in public and private investments.”

However, the relationship between the city and the Stronach Group took a turn for the worse during the General Assembly session that started the following month. The Maryland Economic Development Corp. sponsored a bill allowing the state to issue debt financing upgrades to Laurel Park, but not Pimlico. 

Baltimore's city government and residents from the Park Heights neighborhood sued the Stronach Group and its subsidiary, the Maryland Jockey Club, in March 2019. In the lawsuit, the city sought permission to seize control of Pimlico and, by association, the Preakness Stakes through condemnation. 

That resulted in a bitter back and forth between the city and the Stronach Group that deteriorated into personal jabs and barbs. Cole, then the CEO of Baltimore Development Corp., poked fun at the Stronach family's legal disputes and called them "the Canadian Kardashians." 

However, both sides were able to put the antagonism aside in May of that year when former Mayor Bernard C. "Jack" Young visited Belinda Stronach’s tent at the Preakness Stakes. Young, who had just assumed the role after Pugh resigned amid a scandal over self-published books, met and talked with Belinda Stronach, which paved the way for the end of hostilities.  

Young's office announced in June it had dropped the lawsuit against Stronach Group and would resume what the city called in a news release the "good faith negotiations concerning the ways and means by which to revitalize, renovate and/or redevelop Pimlico Race Course and other thoroughbred racing facilities in the state." 

Those negotiations led to both sides supporting the Maryland Racing and Community Development Act of 2020, a law that both thought delivered a final solution to their horse racing dilemma. 

Now, Maryland’s horse racing industry is cheering for Pimlico amid economic turmoil and an uncertain future, not unlike Depression Era horse racing fans at Old Hill Top cheering Seabiscuit’s victory.