The owner of Maryland's major thoroughbred racetracks will unveil a plan tomorrow to resuscitate the sport with a $35 million overhaul of the tracks, new off-track betting parlors and an innovative partnership with harness racing.
The plan is the result of stern orders this year by Gov. Parris N. Glendening and lawmakers. They made $10 million in aid to horse racing contingent on a blueprint by the Maryland Jockey Club, owner of Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park, to upgrade the oft-maligned facilities, their marketing and management.
Glendening, on a foreign trade mission, issued a written response calling the plan "a significant, positive step forward."
If approved by state leaders, the proposal could change the face of Maryland horse racing by 2002. Dilapidated barns would be demolished, threadbare clubhouses modernized and the grounds beautified at both tracks.
Pimlico's work is scheduled to cost $18 million; Laurel's, $16.8 million.
"We're going to effect a change in the entertainment experience," said Joseph A. De Francis, president of the Maryland Jockey Club.
Pimlico, the historic track in North Baltimore where 100,000 spectators watched the Preakness Stakes last month, will gain some of the amenities that fans have come to expect at stadiums and competing racetracks. They include a mall-like food court and an area designed for televised "simulcasts" of races.
The track's indoor paddock will be replaced with an outdoor one where fans can watch horses and jockeys from terraced viewing areas. A new area for corporate tents and portable skyboxes is intended to attract an upscale clientele.
The plan calls for enhancing Pimlico's setting through the purchase of homes along Rogers Avenue, possibly with city-ordered condemnation, and restricting barns to the track's backstretch. Buildings facing nearby streets will get a new look, creating an architectural focus for a part of the complex that is now an eyesore.
"What we're doing is making our back door our front door," said Robert De Pietro, executive vice president of the jockey club.
The structure of the clubhouse and grandstand will remain intact. The grandstand, which dates to the last century, will be repainted. "We can do a lot with these buildings without imploding them and starting over," De Francis said.
The clubhouse will be rehabilitated, starting with the aging electrical and plumbing systems. A power outage at last year's Preakness humiliated the track and state racing industry on its biggest day. That revived criticism of the tracks and suggestions that the Preakness be dropped from the Triple Crown.
Details of the financing are pending, but De Francis said the jockey club will pay the first $7.5 million. He hopes the rest could be financed by low-interest state bonds or development loans, to be repaid by a 1 percent or 1.5 percent temporary addition to the "takeout" deducted from wagers.
More for marketing
He is also promising to spend at least $9.7 million a year on marketing, up from $7.2 million spent in recent years, and to hire a heavy-hitting executive to attract and better serve customers.
Accompanying the plan is an agreement now being completed with the owners of Rosecroft Raceway, a harness track in Oxon Hill southeast of Washington. The deal, which would replace an unwieldy operating agreement in place since 1993, calls for the rivals to share most of their revenue from betting, admissions and other sources. Eighty percent would go to the thoroughbreds and 20 percent to the harness industry.
Years in the making, the arrangement would give each organization an incentive to help the other prosper, something that could result in new cooperation in everything from the location of off-track betting parlors to approval for twilight racing at Pimlico. The practice of one track's employees operating the other's tracks for parts of each day will end.
The revenue sharing will extend to off-track betting parlors, and the joint development of at least three more parlors somewhere in the "Baltimore-Washington region," De Francis said. The new facilities, unlike the four existing parlors built into bars and restaurants, will be dedicated to racing, he said.
He said he did not know where they would be located except one, already proposed for Elkton. The jockey club has long eyed the Interstate 83 corridor, near Hunt Valley, for an off-track wagering outlet.
De Francis proposes spending $5 million improving OTB parlors and opening new ones.
The reaction from people who have received advance briefings has been enthusiastic, yet tempered by concerns that De Francis won't follow through. In his 10 years at the head of the tracks, De Francis has insisted significant renovations were impossible without state money or permission to install slot machines.
De Francis' active support for Glendening's opponents in last year's primary and general elections created deep animosity between the two and emboldened legislative critics who demanded changes at the tracks.
"The plans are detailed, the concepts are solid, and the ownership is making a significant capital investment," Glendening said. "We will be watching closely to ensure that these plans are fully implemented, and to verify that the ownership is making the promised investments."
Future aid for the industry will hinge on "sustained and measured improvements" at the tracks and the promised acquisition of high-caliber managers, he said.
Glendening has categorically rejected calls by De Francis and other industry leaders to legalize slot machines at the racetracks as a way to raise revenue for racing, a strategy employed with success in Delaware and West Virginia.
Law requires the plan to be presented by Tuesday to the Legislative Policy Committee, made up of 26 ranking legislators, 13 from the Senate and 13 from the House of Delegates. They will send their comments to the governor, who will determine whether to release the $10 million in purse supplements.
"The governor deserves all the credit. Notwithstanding the political differences we've had in the past, he's been the driving force to get this going," De Francis said.
The plan calls for 400 stalls to be demolished at Pimlico, 200 new ones built there and 200 added to Laurel.
Richard Hoffberger, president of the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, which represents horse owners and trainers, said any improvement in facilities would be welcome -- especially if it attracts more fans.
"The horse owners, trainers, grooms aren't any different than the fans. Nobody likes to go to an old, broken-down facility," Hoffberger said.
He said there could be some inconvenience for horse owners north of Baltimore who may have their animals transferred to the more distant Laurel racetrack.
Grandstand and clubhouse capacity at Pimlico, now 35,000, will grow by 5,000 to 10,000. More and higher priced tickets could be sold, allowing horse racing to join the strategic shift to upscale customers under way throughout sports.
The improvements will enable the track to better compete for festivals, corporate parties and other nonracing events.
On the backstretch, new dorms will be built for backstretch workers. A 60-stall stakes barn complex patterned after one at Belmont Park will provide better accommodations for trainers and horses during Preakness week.
Such a facility could help the track obtain national events, such as the daylong Breeders' Cup races, and lure owners of top horses to Pimlico.
Laurel Park will receive improvements to its entryway, including a renovation of the adjacent train station and construction of a new pass gate building where arriving fans can purchase tickets, programs and other items.
"I'm very excited about it. From the racing side, it's just what we've needed," said Maryland Racing Commission chairman John Franzone, a critic of the tracks. "We all would have liked to see it earlier, but let's look at the positive."
Good for racing image
Timothy T. Capps, executive vice president of the Maryland Horse Breeders Association, said the improvements would "definitely change the image people have of racing."
The joint venture with Rosecroft, too, could move the business forward, he said.
"It would be ground-breaking in a lot of ways. I don't think there is another jurisdiction where this is being done," Capps said.
Maryland's tracks now divert from the winning pool 17 percent to 25 percent of bets, depending on the wager. Of that, specific amounts are dedicated by law to state taxes, purses for future races, track owners, and a fund to promote Maryland-bred horses.
Under the proposed revenue-sharing plan, diversions to the Maryland-bred fund, the tracks and purses would be pooled and divided 80-20.
Capps said he has questions about the proposed increase in takeout to finance track renovations. Increasing the takeout generally retards business because bettors win less money, he said.
Jerry Brittingham, president of Cloverleaf Enterprises Inc., which owns Rosecroft, said both sides have agreed in principle but are still working out details.
Brittingham, also a board member of the Harness Horsemen's Association, said the current system, in which each organization focuses its promotion on its own breed, is counterproductive.
Among other things, jockey club employees operate Rosecroft in the daytime, when it simulcasts thoroughbred racing, and Rosecroft workers operate Pimlico at night when harness races are running. Each favor their own industry, turning the channels on simulcasts and shooing the other's fans to unmanned wagering machines.
"I think what it will do is allow us to market our product better and allow us to increase the business for both breeds," he said.
The plan is silent on the future of a training center in Bowie that the tracks own and are required by state law to keep open. But De Francis said he would eventually like to sell or develop the center, which is costly to maintain.
"It is our desire and goal to ultimately consolidate stalling and training operations at Laurel and Pimlico," said De Francis. He said he would not make a decision until he consulted "all the constituencies" involved.