Pimlico Behind Out of the Gate

The start of the Pimlico season used to be an upbeat time on the Maryland racing calendar. Fans and horsemen welcomed a change of scene after many cold months at Laurel and looked forward to the state’s biggest events, the Preakness and Pimlico Special. Stables that spent the winter in warmer climates were returning home, so the fields became larger and the races more competitive.

But as the Baltimore track opens today, just about everyone connected with Maryland racing feels a sense of apprehension. Pimlico will be operating concurrently with Delaware Park, whose season begins Saturday, and the effects of this competition figure to be devastating.

Delaware Park, of course, was rejuvenated last year by the introduction of slot machines. A portion of the slot revenue was earmarked for race purses, and the infusion of money changed the pretty track from a minor-league neighbor to a bona-fide competitor. Delaware’s product improved, though it wasn’t radically transformed: The leading trainers in 1996 were the same ones who had been the leaders in the pre-slot era. Horsemen elsewhere were slow to recognize what was happening at Delaware.

As $2 billion in coins are dropped into its slot machines during a year, generating revenue of some $200 million, Delaware has become such a financial colossus that it is impossible to ignore.

This season the track will offer purses significantly higher than the corresponding races in Maryland and the other mid-Atlantic states. A maiden special weight race, for example, will be worth $22,000 at Delaware and $16,500 at Pimlico. All of the trainers who race at Pimlico will be keeping an eye on potential opportunities at Delaware, and two of the leading horsemen in Maryland, King Leatherbury and Dale Capuano, are sending divisions of their stables northward.

Nobody is more committed to Maryland than Leatherbury: He has lifelong roots in the state; he operates a breeding farm; his livelihood depends on the health of Maryland racing. But he said, “The purses for most races at Delaware are $5,000 higher than Maryland, and shipping there is convenient. The people I train for are not in the game to lose a lot of money, and I can’t pass up what they are offering there.”

An exodus of horses will reduce the size of the fields at Pimlico, and track president Joe De Francis acknowledged, “I’m worried about the quality of the show we’re going to put on. It affects our ability to sell our simulcast signal in the national market.” During the winter, for example, New York off-track betting outlets were taking the Maryland signal once a week. But now New York will take the Delaware races instead.

Delaware’s slot revenue gives it plenty of other advantages of which Marylanders may be envious. Money enables Delaware to keep its grounds and facilities well-maintained, while Pimlico’s grandstand and stable area look as if they belong at a track in Beirut or Bosnia rather than Baltimore. One reporter at last year’s Preakness, Billy Reed of the Lexington Herald-Leader, wrote, “The track is the pits. A dump. The Maryland Jockey Club either needs to do something about it or forfeit the Preakness’ spot in the Triple Crown.”

In the view of De Francis and most other people connected with Maryland racing, there is only one way to revive the sport, improve the facilities and counter the Delaware threat: fight fire with fire by installing slot machines at Laurel and Pimlico. If a sizable percentage of the slot revenue was earmarked for purses, Maryland could become of the nation’s pre-eminent racing states; its purses could be richer than those in New York and California. Yet Gov. Parris Glendening has adamantly opposed granting this help to one of his state’s major industries. Many legislators wanted to pass a pro-slot bill and override a gubernatorial veto, but their efforts bogged down in a morass of politics.

De Francis said: “It’s as if we’re sitting in a car stalled on a railroad crossing. We can hear a whistle blowing and see the train bearing down on us. But the response seems to be: ‘We’re not sure how serious this is. Come back and see us after you’re flattened.’ ”