One of the biggest annual events in Maryland horse racing was approaching, and this particular afternoon in downtown Baltimore last week was especially meaningful. The $1.23-million Maryland Million, the Breeders' Cup-style program started in 1986 and copied by 22 states since, was officially being named in honor of its creator, none other than ABC Wide World of Sports legend Jim McKay, a native Baltimorean and longtime patron of the sport. Major names from the Maryland horse industry, politicians and the late McKay's daughter, Mary McManus Guba, were on hand at Sports Legends Museum at Camden Yards to celebrate the occasion.Yet amid the generally buoyant mood, it was neither surprising nor out of place when, after the announcement, Katherine Voss, one of the state's leading breeders, was asked about the present and future of the sport in Maryland, and she answered with a sardonic smile:
"Hanging on by our fingernails?''
Despite her inflection, it's more a statement than a question. If not for the presence of the middle jewel of the Triple Crown, the Preakness, and the breeding farms and training centers spread across the state, a newcomer
might wonder why Maryland is considered one of the traditional strongholds of the horse industry. By every possible measure, from attendance to revenue to purses to racing dates, business is bad. Culprits range from the sinking economy of the last two years, to the inability to keep up with the times that afflicts the sport nationwide, to conflicts over the breeding, treatment and health of the horses themselves -- to the issue that has polarized Maryland and racing even as it has taken the sport in other states off life support: slots.
"Maryland is known for the farms, the breeding and so forth,'' said Tom Chuckas, president of the Maryland Jockey Club, essentially the governing body for racing in the state. "So what happens here not only affects people here, but affects everybody out there. People are concerned. People are scared.''
For good reason. And because of the dire conditions, the potential savior grows in stature, as does the acrimony surrounding it. Chuckas -- put in place by Canada-based Magna Entertainment, which owns the Maryland tracks and seven others across the country and has been a controversy magnet itself -- was blunt in saying, "Slots is not a panacea in horse racing.''
In the next breath, though, he pointed out what is obvious to everybody in the industry regardless of location: woe is the state that doesn't have slots when nearly every bordering state bordering has them. Delaware, West Virginia and Pennsylvania have had them for years. Maryland, after a decade-long political fight, voted them in last November, yet nearly a year later has only approved one location, at the Eastern Shore, that likely will not get them spinning before Memorial Day.
"More than 30 percent (of slots-playing in Delaware) is Maryland revenue,'' said Wayne Harrison, longtime horse owner and current Maryland Million president, citing often-repeated estimates. "Thirty-two percent in West Virginia is from Montgomery and Charles counties. So the tax dollars that this state is starving for is being sent to other jurisdictions.''
The payoffs can be seen and felt, in the pockets: the upgrades lacking at the home of the Preakness, Baltimore's Pimlico Race Track, have long ago taken place for Charles Town in West Virginia, Delaware Park and Philadelphia Park, while none has suffered as severe a reduction of racing dates as have Pimlico and its sister track to the south, Laurel, site of the Maryland Million. Delaware Park, of course, now also has sports betting to supplement its traffic and intake.
The arguments for and against slots in Maryland are no different than the those for and against gambling in every other state. The "for'' argument has the same roots in financial decline -- and in racing alone, proof of the decline is all over Maryland, one of the ancestral homes of racing and breeding in America (the Maryland Jockey Club was founded in 1743; George Washington was an early member). Because Magna filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March -- its losses from 2006 to '08 are estimated at $306 million -- it put in limbo both Pimlico and Laurel, the last two major tracks in the state, owned by the corporation since 2002. For a few nerve-wracking weeks in the spring, both tracks were up for auction, and before they were taken out of the bidding, one prospective buyer floated the idea of tearing down 139-year-old Pimlico in favor of a shopping plaza.
The Preakness's attendance, after four straight increases, plunged in its last two runnings, including a 31 percent nosedive this year thanks largely to a controversial ban on outside alcohol in the infield. (The ban will remain next year, said Chuckas, pointing out that the day's handle did increase.) As is the case at tracks all over the country, the stands are empty on ordinary days, and too frequently so are the stables -- lack of attendance and daily entries being about the worst combination imaginable. That, in turn, triggered joint decision to cut down on the days the tracks held live racing each of the last three years, choosing that over the less-enviable option of decreasing the purses.
In all, three Maryland tracks have closed within the last 25 years: Bowie, once the East's prime winter racing venue, and harness tracks Rosecroft and Freestate. So terrifying was the twin prospect of Pimlico being sold and the Preakness moved out of state by Magna, state politicians in April began eminent-domain proceedings to take possession of the race and track. It tried the same tactic, unsuccessfully, back in 1984 to prevent the Baltimore Colts from moving. The reasoning then and now was the same: losing such a treasured institution would be devastating financially (with an estimated impact of some $30 million a year, Chuckas said, the Preakness "is like the Super Bowl'') and emotionally (bitterness over the Colts' departure still resonates a quarter-century later).
On the other hand, the state and city are swimming in red ink, and the notion of subsidizing the wealthy horse class while government workers endure furloughs, has hardly been universally embraced.
Clearly, though, that horse class is suffering in its own way. On top of everything else, all of Maryland's breeding numbers are down, according the The Jockey Club (the national organization); the state had the second-steepest decline in live foals among the top 10 breeding states in 2008. It was the latest indicator that had Maryland Million operators worried that there would not be enough competitors sired within the state to fill Saturday's 12-race card. When, the following week, it was confirmed that the total field has actually risen, by one, from the year before -- with the entries for the Classic at 10, double the number in 2008 -- the entire industry sighed with relief.
It's likely a temporary breather. "It's all about stallions in Maryland,'' Voss said. "Because we've fallen so behind, very, very few new stallions have come in the last three or four years, and that's going to continue going backwards for the foreseeable future ... We're going to have to get the whole thing turned around, because the stallions are going to follow our recovery. They're not going to go with us.''
The problem ripples far and wide, because of the reach of the industry all over Maryland, arguably moreso than any of the other major horse states, whose lifeblood relies on it proportionally less. Kentucky's latest bid to include slots at its tracks was shot down in June, but it still has its breeding and yearling sales to sustain it. New York's slots program is still in its infancy; historic Yonkers Raceway debuted slots three years ago, but as successful as that has been, the debates over where the money goes haven't slowed, and the annual hand-wringing over the Preakness gets reprised three weeks later for the Belmont Stakes at struggling Belmont Park.
"Slots give you the ability to maintain and gives you a base, but you have to build on that base, and do the right things by it,'' said Chuckas, widely credited for bringing the various, and often contentious, segments of Maryland racing together for mutual survival. "And what we can't do is take the package we've had the last 30 years and try to force it onto the audience we have today.''
As universal as are the problems in racing in today's sports universe, Maryland's remain uniquely chaotic. As respected as Chuckas is, his arrival in May 2008 made him the third Maryland Jockey Club president in a six-month span. Magna CEO Frank Stronach has gained a reputation as a cold, absentee owner, and his company, amidst its financial crisis, committed a major public-relations gaffe when, after slots were voted in, it failed to submit on time its bid fee for the track in Laurel, long presumed to be the most obvious location in the state.
Magna and Maryland are now tied up in court over the legality of the fee. Also in a seemingly endless holding pattern is another firm's bid for a slots location at a popular shopping mall near Baltimore-Washington
International/Thurgood Marshall Airport, convenient to those major population centers. County officials have yet to approve that site. Yet another proposed location, near the Orioles' and Ravens' stadiums, is creeping along.
"At one point, racing probably needed it more than the state needed it, and now both need it, desperately,'' said David DiPietro, another leading Maryland breeder. "So you would think that would be some kind of a call to action and allow everybody to cut through all the kind of nonsense that delays these processes.''
No one can tell where the bickering will end, when the coins will start dropping or how long one of Maryland's signature industries will stay in purgatory.
Said Harrison, the Maryland Million president, "We need to find common ground on our problems, or this sport will die.''
