Preakness 2024: Pimlico renovation aims for rejuvenated event — and to quiet doubters
Some of the fastest horses in the world will follow an age-old May ritual on Saturday when they vie to win the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course. They’ll speed through the 9 1/2 furlongs, seeking glory in the form of the Triple Crown’s second jewel.
The horses are perpetually 3 years old. Pimlico is perpetually one year older.
The historic racetrack has become increasingly dilapidated, hanging by a thread in a struggling industry even as its Triple Crown contemporaries — Churchill Downs in Kentucky and Belmont Park in New York — receive hundreds of millions of dollars worth of upgrades. A 1993 Sun article detailed the track’s “deterioration,” a master plan released by the City of Baltimore in 2006 sought to improve the “underutilized site,” and over the decades, there have been various blueprints, most recently one launched in 2020, to improve the facility.
But this year, with just-dried ink from a newly approved law paving the way for $400 million in state funds to renovate the track and build a training track elsewhere, horse racing backers hope they’ve finally bet on the winning ticket after a long string of losses.
Greg Cross, chair of the Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority, said that when he first discussed plans to upgrade Pimlico with leaders in Park Heights, the neighborhood where the track is located, he encountered skepticism. Everything he’d been saying, they had heard before.
Some liken efforts to The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Sen. President Bill Ferguson, a South Baltimore Democrat who ultimately backed the bill, compared it to “Lucy and the football” from “Peanuts.” The condemned Old Grandstand was supposed to be knocked down in 2022, according to demands from legislation. It’s still there, though, and will sit empty on Saturday during the 149th Preakness.
But proponents say the newest plan will be the one to cross the finish line.
“This time, it’s going to happen,” Cross said Thursday in Annapolis, shortly after Gov. Wes Moore signed the bill into law.
By early 2025, the Old Grandstand and some old barns will be demolished. That would mark the first concrete progress in a painfully fraught process.
“There’s a lot of skepticism right now. I get it all the time: ‘Are they really doing it?’ Because people have seen this movie before,” said Alan Foreman, longtime general counsel to the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association and a member of the racing authority. “The difference is we have cleared the impediments. They’ve all been cleared, and we are now in full throttle.”
But as the state’s industry prepares for a badly needed face-lift to its facilities, officials say one is also needed for its signature event, the Preakness, which has gone from a revenue driver to a money loser in recent years. Critics say the focus has shifted too much toward big-name entertainers, while the race suffers as the middle child in a Triple Crown calendar that no longer suits many modern trainers.
Foreman predicted swift changes to the Preakness once a state-created nonprofit takes over, with a focus on reconnecting the race to its Maryland heritage.
“We are so far from that now,” Foreman said. “The people that I used to see, the core Maryland customer, [aren’t] there anymore with raised ticket prices, challenges with the venue, changes to the venue. It’s just not something that seems to interest people the way it used to, and that’s something we need to bring back. I expect it to be a vastly different event when we take over in 2027.”
A $400 million plan
The current renovation plan for Pimlico evolved from a 2020 law that envisioned improvements to both Pimlico and Anne Arundel County’s Laurel Park. But momentum was stalled by tax burdens, dire structural issues at Laurel, and prolonged negotiations between The Stronach Group, the Canadian company that has long owned the tracks, and local officials.
The racing authority, created in 2023, mapped out a plan that resulted in this year’s bill. Under the new plan, Stronach, also known as 1/ST Racing, will give Pimlico to the state but continue to own Laurel Park, which will shut down racing operations in the coming years, leaving Maryland with a single one-mile track. The number of race days in Maryland will decrease from about 175 to 140.
A nonprofit created by the racing authority will take control of racing in the state from Stronach, which will license to the nonprofit the rights to use the Preakness name. The nonprofit is also expected to use the name “Maryland Jockey Club,” the storied brand that dates to 1743 under which Stronach currently operates.
The nonprofit will pay $3 million annually for those Preakness rights, plus 2% of the total money wagered over Preakness weekend. In recent years, the gross handle has been about $100 million, meaning the nonprofit would likely pay Stronach about $5 million annually.
Stronach has lost millions annually on racing in the state, but backers of the plan say that, with a new facility and several changes, the nonprofit will erase those losses.
“The plan for the nonprofit is to make money even though it’s a not-for-profit so we can invest it back in the neighborhood and so that we can plow it back into the industry,” Cross said.
Since 2010, Maryland’s racing industry has benefited from $843 million in state revenue generated from slot machines. Some of that continued slot revenue will help finance the $400 million in bonds — which will be paid off in $17-million-a-year increments for decades — as well as revenue generated by the lottery, which would otherwise go to the state’s general fund.
In addition to a renovated Pimlico, the bill will fund the construction of a new training track in Bowie, Woodbine or Aberdeen. A site will be picked in the next three months.
Parts of Pimlico will be demolished before next year’s Preakness, the 150th running of the event, with renovation efforts expected to begin in full force in summer 2025. The Preakness will be run at Laurel Park in 2026 while Pimlico is under construction, and is expected to return in 2027.
“It will be challenging, but that’s our mission,” Gary McGuigan, Maryland Stadium Authority vice president for capital projects, said of the timeline. The stadium authority is working with the racing authority to execute the project.”
A refurbished Pimlico is expected to benefit the Park Heights neighborhood with ongoing affordable housing initiatives and plans for a new public library.
“We didn’t wait just for Pimlico to launch things,” said Yolanda Jiggetts, CEO of Park Heights Renaissance.
‘Only two weeks’ of rest
The plan to renovate Pimlico might never have moved forward if not for the Preakness’ status as one of Maryland’s defining events. But race organizers have struggled to attract compelling fields in recent years, with fewer trainers willing to run their Kentucky Derby horses after just two weeks of rest.
Big names such as trainers Bob Baffert, D. Wayne Lukas and Chad Brown will bring horses to Pimlico this week, and trainer Kenny McPeek will race Derby winner Mystik Dan in the Preakness. But the quick, two-week turnaround between events has led some to question the Triple Crown schedule. Two years ago, Derby winner Rich Strike skipped the Preakness, opting instead of rest for the Belmont Stakes.
Plenty of people in racing, including Maryland officials, have advocated stretching out the Triple Crown schedule to fit modern training practices, but New York officials have seemed disinclined to move the Belmont from its traditional date three weeks after the Preakness, and there’s no overarching authority to force their hand.
The television audience on NBC declined to 5.1 million viewers for the segment including the Preakness last year, down from 5.3 million the previous year, with no Derby winner running. Save for a spike in 2021, when the medication controversy around (subsequently disqualified) Derby winner Medina Spirit created headlines, audiences have trended down over the past five years.
Trainers say the Preakness still carries classic prestige, not to mention a purse increased to $2 million this year. Baffert and Lukas say it’s their favorite of the three Triple Crown events because of the low-key intimacy around the traditional Preakness barn, where all the contenders are stabled for the week. But they acknowledge the changing nature of the race.
“There’s a different approach to it. Trainers want to give their horses more time,” Baffert said. “I’m a traditionalist. But I think we’re getting into the age where things are changing. … Maybe we do need to look at it in a different way because you do want to see the best horses competing in all three [Triple Crown] races.”
McPeek waited until a week after the Derby to commit Mystik Dan to the Preakness, but he said his caution should not be interpreted as a knock on the Preakness, which he won in 2020 with Swiss Skydiver. He also loves the Preakness barn and hopes its history will be preserved in the Pimlico renovation, which he’s eager to see.
“I hope they don’t tear that barn down,” he said. “That barn is so special, and there’s been so many amazing horses that have walked through that barn. That’s where the center of the universe is on Preakness [day]. … The grandstand obviously needs to be revamped. That’s wonderful. I think we could take the sport into another era with some changes there.”
‘Make Preakness great again’
A renovated Pimlico could mean a rejuvenated Preakness.
The Preakness used to be a lucrative event, generating enough profit to sustain the industry the rest of the year, Foreman said, but it has lost money in recent years.
Infield concerts have become a staple of Preakness weekend — including performances from Bruno Mars last year and Jack Harlow this year — but it’s unknown whether they would continue under a new operator and at a revamped venue.
“I think that the biggest change has been the move to an entertainment focus, not focused on racing, not focused on the racing fans, not focused on introducing people to horse racing,” Foreman said. “That is a philosophy that current ownership thought is best for racing. It’s more of a South Miami Beach, California mindset that really doesn’t work for Preakness. And I think that the revenue and losses over the last four or five years bear that out. Bringing in expensive entertainment — that does not benefit racing and it has not benefited the handle.”
Attendance at the marquee race regularly exceeded 100,000 in the 2010s, but problems with the Pimlico facility have multiplied in recent years, with bathrooms failing, the elevator not working and the oldest section of the grandstand closed to the public. Last year, 65,000 attended Pimlico over the two-day weekend. It was nearly triple that in 2019.
Hosting a smaller event in recent years has been an “intentional choice,” the Maryland Jockey Club said in a statement.
“The reimagination of the event layout for Preakness festivities reflects 1/ST’s commitment to providing a thoughtfully curated experience for all guests,” according to the statement.
Preliminary designs for the new Pimlico would host 79,000, not including the infield — which can hold tens of thousands — meaning the venue could easily host more than 100,000 people if there is the appetite for it.
“We want to make Preakness great again,” said Marc Broady, executive director of the racing authority. “It’s that simple.”