Maryland Horse Racing

I am a female sports fan. I go to games, watch them on TV, download the apps, read the stats, and buy the T-shirts. I recently heard about the launch of a new professional women's soccer league, and I started thinking about the sports to which I am attached. They are all professional male sports - plus men's college basketball - but I have never thought about why. I suspect it has to do with my age (51), which limited my exposure to girl's athletics - Title IX was just beginning to be implemented when I was in school - as well as my sports fan role model, my father.

Dale Capuano winced at the sight of the 10 or so people watching the horse race at Laurel Park as he walked from the paddock into the 3,000-seat grandstand. Most were familiar faces. Out on the track, his filly, Calcutta Cat, reeled from a rough break — the horse next to her veered left sharply coming out of the gate — and finished sixth of eight horses. She was the only Maryland-bred horse in the race. Only 19 of the 80 horses entered in races that day had been foaled in Maryland.

Maryland horse racing got exposed for a lack of oversight Tuesday during an appeal to have the Rick Dutrow-trained King and Crusader reinstated as the winner of the $75,000 Maryland Juvenile Championship at Laurel Park. Dutrow and his horse's owner James Riccio lost the appeal, but Maryland horse racing may have lost more, as officials at Laurel Park were found to have not followed all of the proper procedures on the night of that December race. "I'm stabled at Laurel Park," said John Robb, the trainer of Glib, the second-place finisher who was declared the winner of the Juvenile Championship.

Spring brings renewal, and that was the feeling among some horsemen Wednesday, when the Maryland Jockey Club released a Pimlico spring stakes schedule that includes the return of the Grade III Allaire duPont Distaff on Preakness Day and a $100,000 boost to the purse for the day before's Grade II Black-Eyed Susan Stakes. The MJC unveiled the stakes schedule after reaching agreement with the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association and Maryland Horse Breeders Association. All that remains is for the Maryland Racing Commission to approve it Feb. 15 at its monthly meeting at Laurel Park.

For Maryland's breeders, owners, trainers and others employed in the horse racing industry, news that the Maryland Jockey Club wants to reduce Laurel Park to no more than an off-track betting parlor is akin to reading their industry's obituary. Moving away from a year-round, live racing operation, as Laurel is today, to a brief, 40-day schedule at Pimlico built around the Preakness Stakes is the difference between maintaining a Maryland-based racing industry and not. That's a sad turn of events for a state with such a historic and cherished racing tradition as Maryland's.

It's not always in the Preakness Stakes, but every year, John Carroll graduate Nicole Stall urges her husband, trainer Al Stall Jr., to find a race for one of his horses on the third Saturday in May. This year, Departing gave Al Stall his second Preakness mount, finishing sixth in the nine-horse race while his wife and her family were treated to another memorable Preakness Day. “I used to always come growing up, and we try and run horses on...

Looking to generate public support, and perhaps tweak the outcome of the Nov. 3 gubernatorial election, the state's two leading thoroughbred tracks have begun airing television commercials touting the legalization of slot machines in Maryland.The owners of Pimlico and Laurel race courses launched the advertising campaign on Baltimore and Washington stations this week to focus the public's attention on the slot-machine issue, said Joseph A. De Francis, majority owner of the two tracks.The racing industry is pushing to bring slots to Maryland to allow state tracks to compete with those in Delaware and West Virginia, which have the devices and are generating huge sums for race purses and track owners.

The majority of horses in Maryland never set a hoof on a racetrack. They roam over miles of outdoor trails, trot around indoor rings and graze over acres of pastureland, kept for pleasure by thousands of horse lovers in every county in the state. This weekend alone, some horses will sail over jumps at the Columbia Classic Grand Prix show-jumping competition and others will be judged on their skills at two Baltimore County Horse Show Association events in Owings Mills. Many will participate in the Legacy Chase at Shawan Downs in Hunt Valley.

Highlights in Annapolis today:Senate convenes at 11 a.m., Senate chamber.House of Delegates meets at 11 a.m., House chamber.Senate Finance Committee hears bills to assist the Maryland horse racing industry, 1 p.m., Presidential Wing, Senate office building.House Commerce and Government Matters Committee hears HB 1041 and HB 1219, dealing with religious freedom, 1: 15 p.m., Room 140, House office building.Pub Date: 3/06/98

An article in yesterday's editions of The Sun incorrectly stated the details of plans by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Eileen M. Rehrmann for legalizing slot machines at three of Maryland's horse racing tracks. Rehrmann is proposing a 25 percent state gaming tax on the gross revenues of the slots, half of which would go toward education.The Sun regrets the error.Pub Date: 6/20/98