Racing In Maryland

Send the children to stock market camp. They can put themselves through college. Rumsfeld will strengthen defense by getting rid of bases, ships, bombers, missiles, personnel and treaties. OK? The best players skip it; reformers attack its priorities; betting on it may be outlawed: College basketball is in grave danger of going amateur. Don't worry about the decline of racing in Maryland. There's always tip jars.

That the Orioles could be turned around and have a winning season in 2012 and then open the 2013 season with a victory possibly is reason to hope that other Maryland sporting traditions can be revived. Three cross country horse races that constitute what is informally known as Maryland's Triple Crown of steeplechase racing get their start this weekend and next in Harford County with the decades old traditions surrounding the Elkridge-Harford Point to Point and the My Lady's Manor races, to be followed by the Hunt Cup a few miles to the west in Baltimore County.

Joe De Francis, president and CEO of the Maryland Jockey Club, said yesterday that he plans to meet with representatives of the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association to try to resolve the dispute over when to shut down for Colonial Downs. The MTHA, an organization of trainers and owners, issued a news release Tuesday reiterating its opposition to ceasing racing in Maryland so that thoroughbreds can race June 9-July 14 at Colonial Downs in Virginia. The MTHA prefers to send its horses there in September, as in the past.

Maryland's thoroughbred horse racing tracks and the state's horsemen are close to agreement on a 10-year deal that would give the industry stability it has not seen in decades, those involved in the negotiations say. "We've had years of not knowing what the future would hold," said Alan Foreman, the lawyer for the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association. "But now we're running for historic levels of purse money and are on the cusp of an unprecedented revenue-sharing agreement with the track operator.

The Maryland Racing Commission deferred action yesterday on next year's schedule at Pimlico and Laurel Park while the state's thoroughbred horsemen consider the schedule at Colonial Downs, the Maryland Jockey Club-managed track in Virginia. The board of directors of the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, an organization of trainers and owners, will meet Jan. 3 to decide when it would prefer to cease live racing in Maryland so thoroughbreds can run at Colonial Downs. Racing dates at Colonial Downs are the province of the Virginia Racing Commission, not the Maryland horsemen.

Returning home after two weeks spent climbing mountains in Ecuador, Joe De Francis declined yesterday to shed light on the possible sale of a minority interest in Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park.De Francis, principal owner of the tracks, said the loan agreement between the Maryland Jockey Club, of which he is president and chief executive officer, and the estate of former Washington Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke contains a confidentiality clause."I have to respect that," De Francis said.

Apprentice jockey Walter Cullum needs to win at least two races to take the Timonium riding title, which concludes with today's 11-race card.If he prevails, Cullum, 20, would become the second family member to gain notoriety in the racing industry, though Cullum hardly brags of it.He is the nephew of former rider Ronnie Franklin, the one-time apprentice who rode Spectacular Bid to victories in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes in 1979. Of course, Franklin has had his troubles since and is no longer in the game.

Colonial Downs, the Virginia track managed by the Maryland Jockey Club, has received approval from the Virginia Racing Commission to conduct the "Grand Slam of Grass," four turf races that will offer a $2 million bonus to a horse who can sweep the series. The track between Richmond and Williamsburg will run the first two races during its summer meet, June 24 through Aug. 16. The third race is to be determined and the fourth race will be the Breeders' Cup Turf. The two races at Colonial Downs, both for 3-year-olds, will be the inaugural, $500,000 Colonial Turf Cup on June 25 and the $750,000, Grade III Virginia Derby on July 16. The last two winners of the Virginia Derby, Silver Tree and Kitten's Joy, competed in last fall's Breeders' Cup. "We're pretty proud of the horses who've won and gone on to the Breeders' Cup from our race," said John Mooney, Colonial Downs' general manager.

Gov. Martin O'Malley said yesterday that "a limited number of slots at the tracks" could help save thoroughbred horse racing in Maryland, and that without passage of a modest gambling proposal, the Preakness will be lost. "I believe and have for many years that we will not have the 17,000 racing jobs in Maryland" without the addition of slots, O'Malley said during a news conference in Annapolis, days before the race. "We will no longer have the open space that is horse-related open space in Maryland.

Just when things are starting to look up for the state's racing industry, along comes a suggestion that could prove devastating. This month Pimlico Race Course finished its most successful spring meeting ever, and yet some racing officials are already talking about converting Maryland's race tracks to all-purpose gambling facilities complete with slot machines, electronic video poker, live poker games and other casino offerings.Introducing Slots & Co. to the race tracks could eventually kill the racing game in Maryland.

ESPN's Jeannine Edwards started her TV career as an in-track host at Pimlico and Laurel in the early 1990s. “It allowed me to learn television, because I came from a background of  training horses and had no TV experience,” she says. “So I owe a lot of my success and a debt of gratitude to the people in Maryland for giving me a start.” Edwards, who still calls Maryland home, is covering the Preakness for ESPN and ABC this week. Her reports will start appearing Friday on the sports channel and continue through the weekend.

From the Alibi Breakfast to the solid-silver Woodlawn Vase and the Black-eyed Susan blanket draped over the winning horse, the Preakness Stakes is steeped in history and tradition. Saturday's much-anticipated contest at Pimlico Race Course will be — as it has been for generations — Maryland's biggest annual sporting event. The thundering herd of 14 3-year-olds, the fastest in the world, will sprint around a 1 3/16-mile-long dirt track with more than 100,000 people from the well-dressed ladies in fashionable hats of the club house to the more plebeian, if no less exhilarated, throngs of the "Kegasus" infield bear witness — along with a and a national television audience of millions.

The day after his filly Shared Account, a 46-1 long shot, had come home the winner in the Breeders' Cup $2 million Filly & Mare Turf race, Kevin Plank of Sagamore Farms was happy to recall the moment and what he thinks it should mean to Maryland horseracing. "Number one, in the owners' box, you want to act like you've been there before," he said. "But we were jumping up and down. There is nothing like winning a major race in an international field. There's nothing like proving you're the best in the world.

On a grand, blue-sky day at Pimlico Race Course, trainer Tony Dutrow said it was easy to imagine that horse racing in Maryland is as vibrant now as when he was a boy tending barns for his father 40 years ago. But Dutrow knows better. It's often bittersweet for him -- and other former Marylanders such as jockey Edgar Prado -- to return to the state where racing once thrived and experience its decline firsthand. "You don't feel the atmosphere the same way," said Prado, 42, who rode Yawanna Twist to a fourth-place finish in Saturday's Preakness.

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.

Md. should take over I am a horseman who has been involved in the industry for over 35 years and have been in constant contact with most potential bidders, industry leaders and current track management. None of the bidders have the necessary experience or aptitude to improve the industry. The best solution is for the state to gain control of the tracks and contract the management to a party who has run a successful racetrack. Laurel needs to be scrapped, and continue live racing at Pimlico on a limited basis.

Though the General Assembly debate over slots was dominated by doom-and-gloom predictions about the future of horse racing in Maryland, Saturday's 128th running of the Preakness Stakes is hardly likely to be the last at Pimlico Race Course. With the Preakness tradition dating back more than a century and state legislation passed 18 years ago, any attempt to move the second leg of the Triple Crown out of Old Hilltop would face significant, if not insurmountable, hurdles, say track owners and others in the horse industry.

As thoroughbred racing enthusiasts turn their attention today to the sport's second-biggest day in Maryland, the commercials on television plead for slot machines at the racetracks. The commercials cry out: Preserve the state's horse racing industry.The presumption is that Delaware, which embraces slots at its three tracks, threatens horse racing in Maryland. A further presumption is that horse racing in Maryland is on its last leg.The state's Standardbred industry, which supports harness tracks in Prince George's County and on the Eastern Shore, has clearly suffered because of slots in Delaware.

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.

Sure, we want slots. Why not? According to the poll this newspaper commissioned, nearly six out of 10 Marylanders who can vote in the fall say, sure, slot machines - let's get about 15,000 of them and set them up from the Allegheny Mountains to the Eastern Shore. What the hell? We've been talking about this since the last time the Orioles made the playoffs - yeah, that long - and the issue is not going away. The suits who shoot their cuffs when they walk into a room won't stop until they have what they want, and neither will their duly elected accomplices in Annapolis.