Horse Racing

Despite declaring slot machines off the table, the state commission to aid the horse-racing industry spent much of yesterday dealing with slots as the dinner guest who wouldn't leave."

Life couldn't get much better for Margaret Runk right now, here at the Pimlico Race Course on an unseasonably warm opening day. It's only 2:30 p.m. and already she's won $290 from a lottery ticket and a few hundred more betting on the horses whizzing around the track. Luck is on her side today. If only ... "Slots," the 62-year-old Fells Point resident says dreamily. "You'd have a lot of retired people like us coming here more. Everyone we know goes to Atlantic City [N.J.] and Charles Town [W.Va.

Baltimore developer David S. Cordish revealed Wednesday that his company will bid to buy Laurel Park, Pimlico Race Course and the Preakness Stakes, the second leg of horse racing's Triple Crown, which are up for sale by their bankrupt owner. Cordish's interest - and the emergence of a possible second local bidder - comes amid growing anxiety surrounding the fate of the Preakness since last month's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by Magna Entertainment Corp., which owns the Maryland thoroughbred tracks.

The 20 horses that ran in the Kentucky Derby on May 5 were tested before the race for the performance-enhancing drug erythropoietin, or EPO. The tests, which came back negative, were intended as a deterrent. But as the Preakness approached, Maryland Racing Commission officials were taking a different tack. "I don't know that there would be any value" in the tests, executive director J. Michael Hopkins said. The commission ultimately decided to take pre-race blood samples and screen for a battery of 65 drugs that included EPO. None came back positive.

The horse-racing business in Maryland is worth trying to save, for three main reasons. It employs about 9,000 people; the Preakness is a great national showcase for Baltimore; and, maybe most important, the horse farms in the state supported directly or indirectly by racing occupy 685,000 acres of land as open space, about a tenth of all the open space in Maryland. But slot machines are not the way to save the horses. On Tuesday, the administration of Gov. Martin O'Malley began distributing a report by Thomas E. Perez, the secretary of labor, licensing and regulation, that examines the impact of slots on neighboring states and on their racetracks, and finds it to be significant.

The Maryland Racing Commission learned yesterday that the Maryland Jockey Club is working on a proposal for a new simulcast betting facility at a restaurant in Solomons in Calvert County. It would be the fifth off-track betting (OTB) facility regulated by the commission, joining The Cracked Claw near Frederick, North East Racing & Sports Club in North East, the Cambridge Turf Club in Cambridge and the Riverboat Restaurant in Colonial Beach, Va., which straddles the Maryland/Virginia state line.

Gretchen Jackson was just about to go out and help trim the hooves on some of her cows at Lael Farm yesterday afternoon when the telephone rang. It was the Kennett Square Florist saying it was about to deliver 178 Easter baskets to the New Bolton Center, where her late Kentucky Derby winner, Barbaro, had lived the last eight months of his life. "All those gifts are from Barbaro fans," said Jackson, who owned Barbaro with her husband, Roy. "The florist wanted me to come over, but I just can't.

Good morning--Rags to Riches --For some reason, it never seems to be ladies first in horse racing.

Nothing novel about sensitivity The front-page story on sexual harassment training for Maryland legislators was terribly depressing ("Trying to instill basic sensitivity," Jan. 25). Don't harass women when you have power over them? Don't make female colleagues feel uneasy with sexual remarks you would not dare make around your wife or daughter? Those ideas seemed to hit these men like a hot news flash. Have they been asleep for the past 20 years? Was this truly the first time they had ever heard that they should treat women with respect?

North East -- The Maryland Racing Commission listened to an update on the industry at its monthly board meeting yesterday and lamented the previously announced $3 million cut in purses and stakes that will be put into place beginning in August, when racing resumes at Laurel Park. Then the commission approved the request by the Maryland Horse Breeders Association for another cut - in bonuses paid to Maryland-breds that win races at the state's tracks. The bonuses - paid to a winning horse's breeder, to the owner of the horse's sire and to the horse's owner - are funded by 1.1 percent of the tracks' live handle.

Magna Entertainment Corp., owner of Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park, has asked a bankruptcy judge for permission to auction its Maryland racetracks early next year, under the condition that potential buyers promise not to move the cherished Preakness out of the state. The prospect of Maryland's marquee horse-racing event being ripped away by out-of-state buyers prompted state lawmakers to pass a law earlier this year granting the government rights to seize the Preakness under eminent domain - and Magna alleged in court papers last week that state intervention is unconstitutional and creates a "chilling effect" on its efforts to sell the Maryland tracks.

Preakness winner Rachel Alexandra is ready to run against the boys again, and that might mean a little more thoroughbred racing history is at hand. "I expect the best is yet to come," co-owner Jess Jackson said last week in the buildup to today's $1.25 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, N.J. Officials hope for a record crowd of more than 53,000 when the filly takes on Belmont Stakes winner Summer Bird and five other fellas in...

ELMONT, N.Y. -- Mine That Bird and Calvin Borel might be the talk of the Belmont Stakes this week as Borel tries to become the first jockey to win three Triple Crown races despite having ridden two different horses. But there is a growing sense within the sport that Mine That Bird, who was named the 2-1 favorite at the post position draw Wednesday, won't be the horse to beat Saturday. That honor might go to Charitable Man, who didn't run in the Kentucky Derby or the Preakness but won the Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont Park on May 9. "I wouldn't trade horses with anybody else," trainer Kiaran McLaughlin said Wednesday after his horse drew the No. 6 position and 3-1 morning-line odds.

WASHINGTON -- A congressional bill lifting Internet gambling restrictions could help the ailing horse racing industry attract the new and younger bettors it craves, industry representatives say. The legislation, introduced May 6 by Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, would legalize Internet gambling on the federal level and authorize the Treasury Department to regulate it. The legislation would not allow betting on professional sports games the...

College basketball Report: Memphis responding to alleged NCAA violations The University of Memphis is responding to an NCAA notice of allegations accusing the men's basketball program of major violations during the 2007-08 season under John Calipari, a newspaper reported Wednesday. The allegations include "knowing fraudulence or misconduct" on an SAT exam by a player on that season's team, which finished runner-up in the NCAA tournament, The Commercial Appeal reported on its Web site.

Our views Stick to your guns, Tom Chuckas. The head of the Maryland Jockey Club is getting second-guessed plenty after Saturday's subpar attendance at the Preakness, with most people blaming his new policy against BYOB alcohol in the infield. Attendance was the lowest in more than 25 years and was down by about a third from last year. But let's focus for a second on what's really important here. With the bankruptcy of the Preakness' parent company, Magna Entertainment Corp., Marylanders have been fretting for weeks about how to save Baltimore's stake in the second jewel of the Triple Crown.

Ann Quasman, the host of a Baltimore talk-radio show aimed at women, isn't exactly the world's biggest horse racing fan. But she's bursting with excitement - and feminine pride - over Rachel Alexandra, the filly competing against history in today's Preakness Stakes. Quasman and many others predict the "girl horse" will defeat the boys. "Girl Power at the Preakness!" Quasman trumpeted yesterday on her Twitter account. "Whenever you have something that happens for women, no matter what shape they come in, that's unusual," the host at WCBM-AM (680)

When New Mexico trainer Chip Woolley was driving across the continent with his painful broken leg in a splint to enter Mine That Bird in the Kentucky Derby, it probably never occurred to him that horse racing might no longer be worth the effort. The same goes for the thousands of horsemen and horsewomen who get up in the dark every morning at racing facilities big and small to muck their stalls and dream the Triple Crown dream Woolley is living right now. Maybe it was just an oversight, but nobody informed them that this is an X Games world now and that most people would rather watch some kid jump off a ramp on a little bicycle or skateboard.

For about two minutes late Saturday afternoon, the fastest 3-year-old horses on the planet will run on the 1 3/16 -mile dirt track at Pimlico Race Course in the Preakness Stakes. This is the middle jewel in horse racing's Triple Crown, and no Baltimore sporting event is bigger, livelier or more steeped in history and convention. From the Woodlawn Cup to the blanket of black-eyed Susans that will grace the neck of the winner, the raucous infield crowd and the well-dressed ladies in the grandstand and corporate tents, it's hard to imagine Baltimore's third Saturday in May without the familiar scene at Old Hilltop.

Imagine if they tore down the venerable Pimlico Race Course, home of the Preakness Stakes and 139 years of horse racing tradition in Northwest Baltimore. Park Heights shopkeeper Marcus Melvin has pondered the possibility. He'd support a shopping complex as a way to bring needed jobs to the "devastated" neighborhood near the track. No thanks, say Larry and Vicki Kloze, who live a block north of Pimlico. A shopping mall would probably fail, they argue. Far better would be a sedate office park with lots of green space.