Horse Racing

The idea that there should be a national horse racing czar has a new advocate.George Steinbrenner, the owner of the New York Yankees who also owns stables of thoroughbred and harness horses and who used to race greyhounds, told a group of executives assembled in Baltimore for a pari-mutuel gambling conference yesterday that the industry needs a centralized national office headed by a person with "guts, vision and persistency" to bring the ailing sport out...

If it has happened on the American or global sports stage, Bob Costas has covered it, either as host of NBC's prime-time Olympic coverage since 1992, or as anchor or lead play-by-play announcer on the World Series, the Super Bowl and the NBA Finals. Costas, who won his 11th Emmy Award last month as Outstanding Studio Host, will co-host with Tom Hammond NBC's coverage of the Preakness. Costas talked with The Sun's Milton Kent yesterday. Your impressions of the state of horse racing today?

The Maryland Racing Commission yesterday approved a request by Maryland Jockey Club president and chief operating officer Lou Raffetto for twilight racing at Pimlico Race Course during the spring meet that begins tomorrow. The commission, gathering for its monthly meeting at Laurel Park, OK'd six twilight days, May 24-25 and 31 and June 1 and 7-8, when racing will begin at 3:15 p.m. "We experimented with twilight racing at Laurel last August," Raffetto said. "It was extremely successful.

Don Dean was sitting at a table in the near-empty Terrace dining room after the redraw for Saturday's Maryland Million Day at Laurel Park yesterday afternoon. He was talking about his horse, Unbridled Grace, a long shot he has entered in the $150,000 Maryland Million Oaks for 3-year-old fillies. He was one of barely a handful of owners and trainers who showed up for the redraw in which the number of entries dropped from 112 to 109, but the sparseness of the crowd did not curb Dean's enthusiasm.

Poke around the barns at Maryland racetracks and you won't find many horses worth more than the laid-back filly at Laurel Park named Xtra Heat. She's worth a million dollars if she's worth a dime. And she's for sale, although if she leaves the state the fans will miss her. It's not often that Maryland racing is graced by a horse of Xtra Heat's stature. A Daily Racing Form handicapper recently called her a win machine. She's won 10 of 11 races at six different tracks. Three times she's cruised up the interstate to New York and cleaned house.

The search apparently has been narrowed to two candidates -- one with a background in racing and one with television expertise -- to be named the first so-called national "czar of racing."The board of directors of the Thoroughbred Racing Associations, which represents the bulk of North American thoroughbred tracks, voted at its quarterly meeting in Toronto last week to hire a paid president to assume a commissioner-type role.The TRA's first commissioner of racing is expected be hired by the Nov. 6 Breeders' Cup.The idea is to reorganize the TRA, comprised of 42 tracks including all the major ones in the United States and Canada, and give it a more activist role "so that we'll have a league office staffed with full-time professionals instead of a lot of the work being done by volunteer track owners, who have their own businesses to run," said Pimlico/Laurel operator and TRA director Joe De Francis.

THE INDUSTRY that can't get its act together - horse racing - has done it again. With a giant assist from the speaker of the House of Delegates, Maryland racing is digging itself a deep hole. Gone is $10 million in state funds to bolster track purses and make Maryland more competitive with slots-rich tracks in Delaware. Rosecroft, the harness-racing oval in southern Prince George's County, could be on the critical list as a result. Pimlico and Laurel will take a big hit as more jockeys, trainers and owners shift their operations to Delaware Park.

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.

Horse racing fans in the future may be surprised at what they find at the track: touch-screen video monitors, corporate suites, hand-held devices that permit patrons to bet from their seats. As publicly traded conglomerates buy up tracks around the country -- including Maryland's -- they are bringing marketing savvy and investment capital to a sport badly in need of both. The result is a flurry of track upgrades, which, if it continues, could help the sport regain lost popularity. "The industry has lagged a bit in the entertainment world.

When Anna (Rosie) Napravnik brought Sioux for Awad home to victory in the first race on her first ride as a journeyman on opening day of the fall meet at Laurel Park yesterday, she felt the weight lift from her slim shoulders. "Getting the first one gave me confidence for the rest of the day," said Napravnik, who followed up the Sioux for Awad ($7.80) victory with wins on Family Ghost ($3.40) and Partners Due ($3.40). "My agent had me on good horses." By the time she brought Procreate ($5.40)