Racing Days

Pimlico's racing schedule has been chopped by 10 days next year.The opening of the spring meet at the Baltimore track has been delayed from March 15 to March 25. The live racing dates, which will be run instead at Laurel, could mean a loss of nearly $30,000 in parking and admissions taxes to the financially strapped city government, Doug Brown, an official with the Department of Finance, has estimated.But during that period, Pimlico still will operate as an inter-track simulcast center and generate some tax money for the city.

Security at Pimlico's historic Preakness barn will be heightened this year, a move that comes amid renewed concern about doping and horse safety in the sport. All visitors, including veterinarians, who want to spend time with horses scheduled to run in this year's Preakness will have to sign in at the barn off Winner Avenue, which will have just one entrance. Those new measures, adopted by the Maryland Racing Commission and Pimlico ownership, come in addition to surveillance measures and syringe-collection practices already in place for the second leg of the Triple Crown, scheduled to be run May 18 this year.

A day before their plan for cutting the number of live racing days in Maryland nearly in half was to be voted on by the Maryland Racing Commission, Magna Entertainment Corp. and the Maryland Jockey Club withdrew their original plan and submitted a new one that added 17 days to their proposal. When the commission convenes this morning, it will be to consider the new proposal that Jockey Club chief operating officer Lou Raffetto said honors a previous agreement with Maryland horsemen "as we interpret it" for racing from Jan. 1 through Belmont Day 2006.

Freedom Green is a full-time mom with four young children and a husband whose job has him working 20-hour days. That is why she runs. "There are times when I need to get away, so that I don't flip out," says Green, 40, of Owings Mills. "I don't want to pour that negative energy on my kids. Running is mom's multivitamin, a way to alleviate stress. "Any day that I get to run, they [children] could be hanging from the chandelier in the front foyer, and I wouldn't care. " Of the 25,822 participants signed up for the Baltimore Running Festival's four prime races on Saturday, 61 percent are women, up from 44 percent in 2003.

Action shifts to Pimlico tomorrow for 71 racing days (through June 30) with the $50,000 Politely Stakes at six furloungs highlighting the opening card.No racing is scheduled Easter Sunday, but Pimlico will run the following day, April 20. There will also be racing on Memorial Day, May 25.Attendance and handle were slightly off from last year for the last 35 days of the Laurel Race Course meet, which concluded yesterday.Those 35 days originally were scheduled to be run at Pimlico, but were shifted to Laurel so that track repairs could be made.

Laurel Park has announced a new schedule that will apply for the first three months of 1996.The live racing week will consist of Thursday through Monday, eliminating Tuesday as a live day and making it dark. Simulcast-only betting will continue Wednesdays.Laurel is attempting to glean maximum exposure from the rich meeting at Gulfstream Park, which runs Jan. 3 to March 16. Since Gulfstream is dark Tuesdays, Laurel's revised format allows simulcast betting in Maryland on all of that track's programs.

LAUREL -- One person had a super day at Laurel Race Course yesterday, sweeping the Double Triple pool.The man, who requested anonymity, said he won the $72,790 pool with a $30 investment. A 55-year-old car salesman from Manassas, Va., he had one of 33 live tickets going into the fifth race, which was won by the 5-3-2 combination.The bet had not been hit in the past eight racing days.* When Askrawhy was loaded into the gate for the eighth race, she had a small American flag stuck to her tail.

RICHMOND, Va. -- Maryland thoroughbred horse racing will shut down during the summer starting in 1996, becoming part of an alliance with a new Virginia racetrack.Instead of competing with Maryland, the group chosen yesterday to operate Virginia's first pari-mutuel racetrack has a cooperative agreement with Joseph A. De Francis, operator of Maryland's Pimlico and Laurel tracks. Under the deal, hailed as a boost to Maryland's racing business by some, the Maryland and Virginia tracks won't run live races at the same time.

The Keep It In Maryland task force yesterday called on the state to assist in providing new facilities for the horse racing industry to help "level the playing field" between the lottery and racing and to help find a way to increase purses. Representatives of the KIM task force, the Maryland Racing Commission and various segments of Maryland's horse industry will present their case to the Maryland Senate Finance Committee on Jan. 25. Some of what state legislators will hear was voiced at yesterday's racing commission meeting.

If Preakness Day 1991 becomes a recurring vision during today's Pimlico Race Course program, there are reasons why.Whadjathink, seventh of eight in last month's classic, is a contender in the $300,000 Arlington Classic simulcast, being run at Arlington International Racecourse near Chicago.Jeweler's Choice is one of seven well-matched sprinters in the $112,600 True North Handicap simulcast from Belmont Park. The Maryland-based gelding won the $154,350 Baltimore Budweiser Breeders' Cup two races before the Preakness.

Robert Vigorito, founder and race director of the Columbia Triathlon Association, went straight to the top when choosing a spokesperson for his new race, the Iron Girl Columbia Half Marathon and Coed 5K, scheduled for April 29. Vigorito asked Joan Benoit Samuelson, a rock star in the world of racing -- breaker of world records, winner of marathons, and the first woman to win an Olympic marathon. Samuelson, now 54, is an ardent advocate for lifelong fitness, and, believe it or not, she still runs marathons.

The thoroughbred industry missed Thursday's deadline to submit a long-term business plan to sustain the sport to the Maryland General Assembly. A state law enacted earlier this year to provide slot subsidies to the state's struggling racetracks called for the sport's stakeholders — including track operators, horse owners and breeders — to craft a plan that would maintain year-round racing without slots at a racetrack. Joseph Bryce, Gov. Martin O'Malley's top legislative aide, who has been keeping track of the discussions, said a plan would be provided when talks on the industry's future and a deal for next year's racing dates are completed.

It's deja vu for Maryland's thoroughbred racing industry. Less than three months before the 2012 season, the Maryland Jockey Club and the horsemen are at odds again and have yet to agree on the number of live racing days for next year. "We're staring at the barrel of a shotgun again," Louis Ulman, chairman of the Maryland Racing Commission, said Tuesday. Ulman had asked the Jockey Club and horse owners and breeders to provide an update at Tuesday's meeting about next year's racing schedule at Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore to avoid a similar situation to last year's, with the future of the sport and the storied Preakness Stakes in doubt.

For a dozen years, Bill Kohlhepp has sold hot dogs off the grill and soda to hungry baseball and football fans downtown. His tent is in an ideal spot to grab the attention of spectators streaming toward Camden Yards and M&T Bank Stadium: on the pedestrian island of a busy intersection northwest of Oriole Park. Now that spot, between Russell Street and Washington Boulevard, is also right along the two-mile race track for theBaltimore Grand Prix. And as the Grand Prix draws near and barriers and grandstands are erected, Kohlhepp says he's watched the advantages of his location evaporate.

Laurel Park will be host to 68 race days and 27 stakes races this fall after the Maryland Jockey Club reached agreement with the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association and Maryland Horse Breeders Association today. The schedule was approved by the Maryland Racing Commission this afternoon. The meet begins Sept. 9 and ends Dec. 17. The highlight of the met is the 26th running of the Jim McKay Maryland Million on Oct. 1 and the return of the Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash on Oct. 22. It had been on a one-year hiatus.

Trainer Graham Motion said this morning he's leaning strongly toward bringing Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom to Pimlico Race Course on Saturday, the day of the Preakness Stakes, instead of arrriving Friday and having him stay overnight in an unfamiliar environment. Animal Kingdom has been settling in at his new home at the Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, where Motion has his base of operations, since he won the Kentucky Derby on May 7. "I'm really thinking I'm leaning that way right now," Motion told The Sun. "I'm just not sure I see any benefit to bringing him in on Friday.

After 13 weather-related cancellations and a recent audit that showed the Maryland mile thoroughbred tracks posted record-breaking losses in 1993, the 52-day live racing meet at Laurel Race Course ended yesterday on a positive note.Betting figures for the first quarter of 1994 showed that total wagering increased 39 percent over a similar period last year and average daily handle on live racing days climbed 24.4 percent.The reason for the turnaround -- which began during the last half of 1993 -- is the addition of multiple signal simulcasting, the opening of six more off-track and inter-track betting outlets and simulcast-only cards presented on Wednesdays.

In an effort to beef up the Pimlico spring meeting, Maryland Jockey Club president Joe De Francis last night proposed a 1996 thorougbred-racing schedule that would suspend live racing in the state on 15 more dates.At a board meeting of the Maryland Thoroughbred Horseman's Association in Laurel, De Francis outlined a plan that would convert selected weekday racing dates to simulcast-only days, producing approximately $900,000 in revenue.The money would be used to re-institute the purse bonus for races during Pimlico's spring meet, which showcases the Preakness and Pimlico Special.

With the Maryland thoroughbred industry as close as ever to demise, Gov. Martin O'Malley on Wednesday brokered a last-minute deal that guarantees live racing next year at Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course and ensures the storied Preakness Stakes will continue here. Owners of the state's two major thoroughbred tracks and industry representatives for horse owners, breeders and trainers agreed to a framework that would allow the tracks to at least break even financially and run races on 146 days in 2011, the same as this year's schedule.

The owners of Maryland's two major thoroughbred tracks proposed Friday to run 77 days of live racing next year at Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course that would conclude after the Preakness Stakes in May. Meanwhile, the tracks' minority owner, Penn National Gaming, said it would pursue slots at Laurel Park, which means lobbying to change the state constitution to allow a second casino in Anne Arundel County when the General Assembly reconvenes...