Posted on 05/18/2011 5:25:52 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
On Saturday afternoon, Maryland horse racing once again will take its place in the sporting world’s spotlight with the 136th running of the Preakness Stakes at Baltimore’s Pimlico Race Course. The other 364 days of the year, however, Pimlico and the Maryland racing industry aren’t proving ready for their close-up.
Plagued by poor planning and without the expected revenue from slot-machine gambling, Maryland’s storied racing industry has been left with fewer horses, smaller purses, aging facilities and no visible plan for long-term stability.
“The state of Maryland racing is not something that happened yesterday morning. It’s been an attrition over the last 10, 12 years. There’s not the level playing field,” said Tom Chuckas, president of the Maryland Jockey Club. “Prior to the advent of the additional forms of gambling, Maryland was head and shoulders above our mid-Atlantic competitors.”
Not anymore.
The introduction of slots and casinos in Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia in particular has handcuffed Maryland racing, which for decades served as the hub for thoroughbreds in the region, thanks in large part to the Preakness.
“Maryland was a very good racing circuit for a very long time, so it’s very sad,” said jockey Rosie Napravnik, who rode Pants On Fire in this year’s Kentucky Derby. “A lot of us have had to kind of move out of Maryland because there’s no money there. It’s very sad what’s kind of happened with the racing there and the downfall.”
What went wrong?
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
A relative of mine based in MD now races lots more elsewhere.
Not sure the article gets to the fundamental underlying issue, from which the rest flows. Horse racing is a slowly dying industry, or at least has nowhere near the “share of mind” of sports fans and gamblers that it did decades ago. What has crushed Maryland is that the market participants who do worst in such an industry are those that are mismanaged or managed more poorly than better competitors. And that’s what has been Maryland’s problem - the mind-boggling number of ways that they have screwed up the industry, as alluded to in the article. Laurel and Pimlico are shadows of their former glory. The glue factory awaits at the rate the Maryland industry is going.
I recall, during my college days, a P.G. County liquor store that had a numbers racket going.
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
Horse racing is a nasty business - from insurance fraud to horsemeat.
Delaware and PA (and I think WV) now have table games at their tracks as well as slots. If they are hoping for money to come into the state instead of going to the surrounding states, they are going to have to do more to draw people.
Penn nat built the slots casino in southern md... and did everything it could to delay the opening of Arundel Mills. They lost that battle at the ballot box... the casino in Arundel Mills has broken ground, but because of the type of facility that has to be built, will not be finished any time soon. I have never thought Penn nat had any real interest in protecting the racing industry... just their business in Charles town.
“not once did I see the POLITICAL reason that the race tracks didn’t get slots 7 or 8 years ago.”
You’re sugesting that it was because the governor Bob Erlich, who wanted slots, was a republican in a democratic state? H could have proposed a raise for teachers, but the tteachers’ union would have turned him down because he was a republican.
How do people like it with O’Malley who can find a tax he does not want to raise. They have just announced that they want to double the toll for crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge; and in 2 years raise it to $8.00. A lot of people on the Eastern shore cross the bridge to work in MD and DC. Would you guess that Maryland’s eastern shore is largely republican?
Is this political punishment?
Indeed. Ehrlich (R) wanted slots allowed, and Dems hated it. As SOON as Owe’Malley came in, suddenly it was a great idea!
But by then, it had been whittled down to “slots for all”, instead of the original point - slots for horse tracks.
Speaking as a racing fan - and verified by fellow MD racing photographer who has her hands in it much more than I.
Instead, they put the casino at Arundel Mills — a shopping mall. That was idiotic.
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