Maryland Million

Racing fans in other states associate Maryland racing with one event, the Preakness. But today, the crowd of 20,000 expected at Laurel Park will celebrate its own splendid secret: The Preakness may be biggest, but the Maryland Million is best.In its 14th renewal as Maryland's mini-Breeders' Cup, Maryland Million combines horse racing with face painting, gambling with politicians' grinning and the majesty of the horse with the promotional giveaway of a truck.But behind the glad-handing and smiles, a serious competition takes place.

The Maryland Million Classic looks to be such a wide-open affair that Clem Florio, the Laurel Park oddsmaker, deemed Perfect to a Tee the morning-line favorite at the very cool odds of 4-1."That's OK," said Linda Albert, the horse's trainer. "He never gets any respect."You can't say that about his trainer. Albert, 40, has emerged as one of Maryland's top conditioners of thoroughbreds. Last year, she won her first Maryland Million races: the Lassie with Perfect Challenge (at non-respectful odds of 30-1)

Agnew strained at his leash. His little ears at attention. His little legs ready to gallop. The crowd along the rail was as quiet as a church congregation, awaiting the call.And suddenly, Agnew, a Jack Russell Terrier who measures about a foot high, was off, leaping, clearing the 24-inch high barrier in front of him! The crowd roared.Margarita, who had won her heat in an earlier Terrier race, came next. She cleared the barrier, too, but then used up her energy by leading her owner on a merry chase across the track.

The appropriate horse won the biggest race on the second-biggest day of racing in Maryland. His name: Perfect to a Tee.The 7-year-old gelding captured the $200,000 Maryland Million Classic yesterday at Laurel Park, holding off the dramatic late charge of Steak Scam, a gelding 2 years younger.Perfect to a Tee's trainer, rising star Linda Albert, said afterward that she worried early in the race that her horse, running snug against the rail, might become stuck inside traffic. But when Perfect to a Tee reached the final turn of the 1 3/16-mile race, his jockey Alcibiades Cortez swung the favorite to the outside and into the clear.

Saratoga Springs romped to the most decisive victory on Maryland Million day, a 7 1/2-length score in the $100,000 Maryland Million Oaks. Her triumph prompted an emotional celebration in the winner's circle.Her former trainer, the renowned Dick Dutrow, was one of her owners along with his wife, Vicki, and friends Sondra and Howard Bender, Arlene and Herb Kushner, and Marion and Al Akman -- Marylanders all.After Dutrow died in February and his son Tony took over training, the owners changed the name of their group to Saratoga Friends Stable, reflecting their relationship with Dutrow.

Gov. Parris N. Glendening's inaugural committee raised roughly $1.1 million to pay for two parties for the governor this week, according to a list of sponsors released yesterday and the committee's estimates of tickets sold.The sponsor list shows that $855,000 of the total was raised in contnbutions of $2,500 to $20,000 from almost 150 businesses, law firms, lobbyists and other special interests.Officials said the parties, including Wednesday's inaugural ball and a cocktail party Sunday, cost more than $850,000.

Thoroughbred racing returns this week to Maryland after the five-week hiatus for the Colonial Downs season, which concludes tomorrow.On Wednesday, Laurel Park reopens for live racing in the midst of major renovations inside and outside the track. Inside, the most striking change is the closing of the Sports Palace and the addition of numerous simulcast theaters in the clubhouse and grandstand.We'll tell you more about that later this week. For now, suffice it to say that the Maryland Jockey Club has begun fulfilling its commitment to upgrade facilities and revitalize racing in the state.

Laurel Park's opening today signals what could become an extensive renovation of the state's two major thoroughbred tracks.The Maryland Jockey Club has launched its massive improvement project at the Laurel track even as it prepares for its second biggest day, the 14th annual Maryland Million on Saturday.Opening-day patrons as well as the 20,000 expected for the Maryland Million will find renovations under way inside and outside the state's most-used thoroughbred track."We had a choice: Don't start anything or be a little crowded on Maryland Million day," said Joe De Francis, president and CEO of the Maryland Jockey Club.

The catalog resembles the Good Book, thick and rich in pedigree and promise. And this weekend, thousands are clutching their bibles as they roam the state fairgrounds, preparing for Maryland's largest sale of thoroughbred yearlings.If the three-day auction that begins tomorrow at Timonium follows the trend of this year's sales throughout the country, records will fall in every significant category. Already the sale has set a standard: So many yearlings were entered (the catalog lists 750)

Now that the 14th Maryland Million is history, breeders can begin planning the matings that will produce Maryland Million runners into the next century. They have three new stallions to consider.Audrey and Allen Murray have added Crypto Star to their roster at Murmur Farm in Darlington.A 5-year-old son of Cryptoclearance, the sire of Victory Gallop, Crypto Star earned $730,090 on the racetrack. He won the Arkansas and Louisiana derbies and finished second in the Whitney Handicap, fourth in the Belmont and fifth in the Kentucky Derby.

LAUREL - - Davidson horse trainer and owner Hubert "Butch" Cave had a hearty laugh Saturday when someone told him she decided to bet on his horse, Sumacha'hot, in the Maryland Million Classic because his "wife" had passed along a tip that the horse was going to win. "I'm not married, and I'm not even dating anyone," Cave said, shaking his head. "So I don't know where that came from. When you own racehorses, the women tend to run the other way." Still, someone was out there talking up Sumacha'hot, and whoever it was, she seemed to know something few others did. The 4-year-old horse, which Cave picked up for $5,000 in a claiming race less than a year ago, won the $200,000 Maryland Million Classic on Saturday at the 24th running of the Jim McKay Maryland Million in front of 19,622 at Laurel Park.

Horse breeder Allen Murray is 76 years old, but when he laughs, he sounds like a much younger man. "People keep saying to me, 'When are you going to retire?' " Murray says. "I tell them: 'Shoot, I am retired! I retired a long time ago.' " It's hard to tell, considering how hard he still works. Murray - who owns Murmur Farm near Darlington with his wife Audrey - realizes he's one of the fortunate ones in his business, one of the few who can still say he's having fun and doing what he loves.

Broadway Producer, at 9-5, has been established as the early-line favorite for Saturday's $200,000 Maryland Million Classic, the showcase race in the 24th running of the Jim McKay Maryland Million. The 2008 Turf winner is trying to become the second horse in Maryland Million history to win the Classic the next year, joining Master Speaker who did it in 1988-1989. Broadway Producer, trained by John Terranova, hasn't tasted victory this year. But he'll be ridden by jockey Ramon Dominguez, the nation's leading rider this year with more than $13 million in earnings.

College field hockey No. 1 Terps roll in ACC opener at No. 9 Boston College No. 1 Maryland won its Atlantic Coast Conference opener Saturday against host No. 9 Boston College, 6-2. The Terrapins moved to 8-0 this season and 1-0 in the conference. Senior Nicole Muracco, the reigning ACC Player of the Week, and junior Katie O'Donnell each scored two goals in the game. Senior Emma Thomas and freshman Janessa Pope added one goal apiece. "BC is a very, very strong team," Terps coach Missy Meharg said.

The Maryland Jockey Club announced Friday morning that 167 horses pre-entered the 2009 Jim McKay Maryland Million for the 12 races at Laurel Park on Sept. 26. Nineteen horses are cross-entered, bringing the total number of entries to 186, and the event expects 90 percent participation, according to Mike Gathagan, spokesman for the Maryland Jockey Club. This is the first year the Maryland Million will be run with McKay's name attached to it, a fitting tribute considering it was McKay who originally dreamed up the idea to support horse racing in his adopted home state.

The Maryland Jockey Club and Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association have set their schedule for the rest of 2009, and it includes the return of the Grade I Frank J. De Francis Dash after a one-year hiatus. After a 10-week break, live racing will return to Maryland on Aug. 1 at Laurel Park. The 11-day summer stand will conclude Aug. 23, with live racing taking place Friday (3:35 p.m. twilight post time), Saturday and Sunday for three consecutive weeks after opening weekend. That's one more day of summer racing than the MTHA held last year, according to Mike Gathagan, vice president-communications of the Maryland Jockey Club.

After working in the horse industry for nearly three decades, Cricket Goodall, executive director of the Maryland Horse Breeders' Association, is trying to navigate the 700-member organization through the most perilous of times for the state's thoroughbred interests. With Magna Entertainment - the Canadian-based owner of Maryland's two racetracks and the Preakness Stakes - filing for bankruptcy protection this month, the state's thoroughbred horse farms face an uncertain future. If there is no viable racing outlet in Maryland, that will accelerate the exodus of farms and horses to nearby states such as Pennsylvania, where racing industries are already bolstered by slot machine revenues.

Jockey Jeremy Rose, coming off a three-month suspension for striking a horse in the face at Delaware Park, ended a frustrating day at the Maryland Million at Laurel Park yesterday when he won the $200,000 Ladies, the seventh race of the day, aboard Miss Lombardi. Until then, Rose - who has said he did not intentionally whip Appeal to the City in the face during a race June 23 - had been on chalk or near-favorite entries in the first five races yesterday. But although he finished in the money in four of those races, he managed nothing better than a second place, in the $200,000 Turf, the fourth race, with Dr. Rico.

Cuba, a 7-year-old horse sired in Maryland and bred in New Jersey, took the lead coming out of the far turn of the Jim McKay Maryland Million Classic yesterday and outraced Diamond David and defending champion Evil Storm down the stretch for a four-length victory in the feature race of a card at Laurel Park restricted to offspring of Maryland stallions. Nearly 22,000 showed up at Laurel for the 23rd running of what is considered Maryland's second-most important race day next to the Preakness, and $2.96 million was wagered at the track and elsewhere.

Today's Maryland Million Day might wind up being a case of the opening act upstaging the headliner as even horsemen are calling the $150,000 Distaff - the race preceding the feature event, the $300,000 Classic - one of the most intriguing matchups in the Million's 23-year history. The Maryland Million, a 12-race card at Laurel Park (first post, 12:15 p.m.), is restricted to horses sired by Maryland stallions. The restrictions on entries, veteran trainer Dickie Small said, can produce some lopsided races.