The Maryland Jockey Club, the governing body of the sport in the state, plans to eliminate live racing at Laurel Park, one of its two remaining full-time thoroughbred tracks, at the end of the current meet on Dec. 18. After that, it will only offer simulcasts, and the only thoroughbred meet would be at Pimlico, for 40 days in the spring around the time of the annual Preakness Stakes.
Voters in Maryland's Anne Arundel County approved a zoning referendum for a slots facility near a popular shopping mall between Baltimore and Laurel. Statewide voters approved slots in 2008, but Laurel's and Pimlico's then-owners, Magna Entertainment (which has since sold its Maryland tracks in bankruptcy), missed the subsequent deadline for a license fee to put slots at Laurel.
"The problem with that is, 40 days of live racing does not support an industry that has, directly and indirectly, 15,000 jobs, and has economic impact of $750 million."
-- Maryland Jockey Club president Tom Chuckas Defeating the zoning referendum and re-opening the bidding for a location in the county was the last chance Laurel had to get slots at the track, where it and the rest of the industry could reap more of the financial rewards. The Jockey Club waged an expensive campaign to defeat the initiative, and the proponents waged one nearly as costly; it passed with 56 percent of the vote.
The crushing blow came days before the industry was looking to capitalize on the popularity of its latest celebrity horse, Zenyatta, at the Breeders' Cup Classic at Churchill Downs. Throughout most of the 19th and 20th centuries, Maryland joined Kentucky and New York (not coincidentally, the other sites of the venerable Triple Crown races) as the preeminent horse-racing states in the country, leading the industry in breeding, sales and revenue. Between the three, they provided internationally-renowned racing year-round. Laurel opened in 1911.
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