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New York Times

After 150th Preakness, a wrecking ball and ‘philosophical dilemma' for Triple Crown's middle child

Gathered around a dinner table in Saratoga, N.Y., in 1868, then Maryland governor Oden Bowie offered a wager to his colleagues, all of them fans of thoroughbred racing: In two years' time, their current crop of yearlings would race head-to-head as 3-year-olds. The winner would enjoy dinner at the losers' expense. The parties agreed to the bet and set about determining where to host the race. Advertisement Saratoga, America's first racetrack, built five years earlier, made sense. But Bowie had bigger and bolder plans. Eyeing an opportunity to build a track in his home state, one with a long history of and affinity for horse racing, Bowie organized the Maryland Jockey Club. On Oct. 25, 1870, the track he named Pimlico (after a familiar area in London and a favorite watering hole, Olde Ben's Pimlico Tavern) opened its doors. That day, the two-mile Dinner Party Stakes was won by a horse derided as 'half-trained and fat as an ox.' His name was Preakness. Three years later, Bowie named his signature race after the winning horse, and on May 27, 1873, the Preakness Stakes was born. This Saturday, the Preakness celebrates its 150th anniversary, thanks to a three-year hiatus beginning in 1890 messing up the math. Pimlico, in the meantime, awaits a wrecking ball. That the Preakness' big party coincides with the temporary death of its track feels like a suitable pairing. The second jewel of the Triple Crown has long owned its forlorn middle-child status. Stuck in the middle of the pageantry of the Kentucky Derby and the history-making potential of the Belmont, it's at the mercy of a calendar not necessarily suitable for modern-day racing, and over time its facade started to reflect the race's despair. If the three Triple Crown races were played out on TikTok, the Derby would be Janice, the Belmont Holly and the Preakness Dooneese. This year, part of the problem will be solved. After the Preakness, Pimlico will be razed entirely. The Preakness will move to nearby Laurel Park for 2026 and return to its entirely reimagined Park Heights neighborhood digs in 2027. 'The Preakness is still the single biggest sporting event in the city of Baltimore,' says Alan Foreman, a former Maryland assistant attorney general and current chairman of the Maryland-based Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, who has been instrumental in securing Pimlico's future. 'Sure, we have the Orioles, the Ravens, but in terms of a single event, there is nothing that compares to the Preakness. Now we'll have a great track. We just need to make sure we can keep the race relevant.' Advertisement Once upon a time, the fight to save Pimlico was no less complicated than the conversations surrounding a reimagined Triple Crown calendar. Changes in ownership groups, spiraling costs and the absence of the casino revenue that bolsters horse racing in other states eventually added up to an eyesore. The track, which has not undergone significant renovations for close to 60 years, became appropriately known for its urinal runs, in which (presumably inebriated) infield denizens ran across the tops of the port-a-johns while others threw objects at them to knock them off. At the last five Preakness races, well-heeled fans given access to the swanky Turfside Terrace inside the turf track looked out upon a huge tarp covering the 6,000 seats deemed unsafe and thereby condemned. Savvy reporters regularly took the stairs to the press box to avoid the inevitability of the elevator malfunctioning. 'Sure, there's some nostalgia,' says Foreman, who grew up a little more than a mile from the track. 'But no one is crying about the wrecking ball.' That the track sits in a distressed neighborhood made it easier for owners to think about reasons to leave instead of ways to stay. Once a 'streetcar suburb' sitting just five miles outside downtown Baltimore, Park Heights has declined for decades, with the city's mayor, Brandon Scott, who grew up in the neighborhood, commenting last December on the city's failures to fix issues of violence and vacant homes. The fence around Pimlico almost serves as a barrier to keep the trouble out. Rumors about relocating the Preakness and shuttering Pimlico had legs for years. Finally, in 2018, the Stronach Group, which owned both Pimlico and Laurel Park, announced it was only committed to hosting the race at Pimlico through 2020. Advertisement 'Every year we try to do things better and better,' Belinda Stronach, the company's chairman and president, said at the time. 'But also, people realize this facility is very old and in need of repair and major renovation. So for us at the Stronach Group, we ask ourselves, 'What is the best option?'' 'That was the catalyst,' Foreman says. 'That ran deep into the nerves of a city that still hasn't gotten over Bob Irsay taking the Colts out of Baltimore.' The city responded with a lawsuit against the ownership group, arguing the owners had 'systematically underinvested in the track since 2011.' As the public feud continued, privately a small group that included Foreman started to think of ways to save the track. By 2019, the Stronach Group was out of Maryland track ownership, and in 2020, the state passed the Maryland Racing and Community Development Act, authorizing $375 million in state bonds to refurbish Pimlico. The new Pimlico will lean into the grandeur of old in its clubhouse, but the grandstand will house only 5,000 spectators. The plan is to steal from the PGA Tour model and construct overlays and temporary seats in outside areas. The bonds also will cover the cost to acquire the nearby Shamrock Farm, which will serve as a thoroughbred training center (the footprint of Pimlico only allows stables for some 400 horses). The idea is to make Maryland the epicenter of Mid-Atlantic racing, with Pimlico offering live racing and the farm providing trainers a place to work from and easily reach tracks in Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. That, of course, only solves one problem. The Kentucky Derby is the goal for 3-year-olds, trainers mapping out routes to acquire enough points and simultaneously peak for the first Saturday in May. The Belmont, run a full five weeks after the Derby, is more well-suited to the modern-day thoroughbred. Although winning the Triple Crown can't happen without the middle child, its two-week turnaround is an ask many trainers don't want to make of their horses. This year, that number includes Bill Mott, who, within days of winning the Derby, opted to point his horse, Sovereignty, toward the Belmont. That leaves a nine-horse Preakness field that includes only three Derby horses (runner-up Journalism; Sandman, who finished seventh; and American Promise, who came in 16th). Only two, Journalism and Sandman, have won Grade 1 races. Advertisement Plenty of decision-makers in horse racing, including previous operators of the Preakness, have toyed with retooling the race calendar, but it creates a philosophical dilemma. Is it right to change tradition and reorganize the calendar when the very thing that makes the Triple Crown so special is how difficult it is to achieve? Only 13 horses have done it, and only two since Affirmed in 1978. A reorganization would also require multiple TV partners to manipulate their broadcast schedules. The Derby and Preakness are on NBC (though the Preakness rights are up this year), and Fox now has the Belmont. 'The single greatest marketing tool the industry has is the Triple Crown, and the industry needs to look at if the Triple Crown needs to be modernized,' says Foreman, an admitted traditionalist. 'Every single sport has taken its traditions and made changes. Horse racing should be no different.' (Top photo by Rob Carr / Getty Images)