Sport of Kinds: Horse Racing in Maryland
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ECONOMICHISTORY Sport of Kings: Horse Racing in Maryland BY BETTY JOYCE NASH ttendance at the Preakness The method paid in proportion to the The once-vibrant Stakes in Baltimore fell by 30 total amount bet, and it dominates A percent last May compared to horse racing today. Maryland’s racing racing industry the previous year, yet total wagering legacy also includes early off-track on race day rose to nearly $87 million, betting parlors as well as 19th century monopolized legal an 18 percent jump over 2008. That government incentives to build the was unusual. Industry watchers called historic Pimlico track. gambling until the it an anomaly because odds favored Maryland and Virginia were the the winner, Rachel Alexandra, a thor- cradles of racing in the American 1970s, but now it oughbred filly, and 85 years had passed colonies. Colonial governors, appoint- since a filly had crossed the finish line ed by the King of England, imported faces eroding at the Pimlico Race Track. The race the best-bred mares and stallions from is usually Maryland’s biggest one-day the mother country. One mare com- revenues because sports event. peted so well she was barred from But Pimlico’s future is in limbo. racing in Virginia in the 1700s, says Joe of competition from Owner Magna Entertainment is in Kelly, a newspaper man who covered bankruptcy, and the state Legislature horse racing for the better part of the other types of has authorized the governor to use 20th century. Her name was Selima, eminent domain, if necessary, to keep and Laurel Racetrack named a race in wagering it in Baltimore. The 2009 racing her honor. schedule has also been curtailed from Overland races known as steeple- 31 to 20 days. Pimlico’s plight illus- chases were so named because riders trates an industry already dogged by raced from church steeple to steeple, sparse attendance and revenues and people wagered in a “my horse dependent on slot machine gambling. can beat your horse” fashion. George Since the 1970s, horse racing has com- Washington’s diary noted wins and peted not only with alternative losses on his trips to race in Maryland, entertainment but also gambling via according to Joseph Challmes in The state lotteries, and, later, casinos, and Preakness: a History. racetrack casinos. While those “raci- nos” recently won legislative approval in Maryland, bidding for casinos and construction there are off to a slow start. In neighboring Pennsylvania, Delaware, and West Virginia, however, the racinos are thriving, stealing busi- ness from Maryland tracks. Patrons of the Turf Horse racing today is thoroughly dependent on wagering. Portions of the gambling money provide funds for owners and trainers, and indirectly for TION OCIA breeders, since the value of a horse can Two offspring of S be traced to expectations about its Man o’ War raced at performance. Pimlico in 1938. War Of the many milestones in Admiral was heavily AND HORSE BREEDERS AS favored to beat YL Maryland racing, perhaps the biggest Seabiscuit but came : MAR was the introduction of the “French up short by four OGRAPHY T Mutuel” machine at Pimlico in 1873. lengths. PHO 36 Region Focus • Spring 2009 Spring 2009 • Region Focus 37 Total Betting for Maryland Thoroughbred Racing 600 500 Preakness. And from that race, the 1.5 mile Preakness Stakes Industry Program. “It was a state rich in history and horse ball gained. Racing is also harder to broadcast, given its brief 400 for 3-year-olds began in the spring of 1873. breeding.” spurts of action followed by the lags between races. “I think 300 The most enduring legacy of that 1873 Preakness may the lack of regularly scheduled [television] racing and the have been the popularity of the parimutuel betting machine Racing’s Debt: Wagering difficulty of convening it on television hurt in a period where $MILLIONS 200 that paid winners in proportion to the total amount they While gambling sustains horse racing today, until the expan- TV broadcasts made the landscape of modern sport.” 100 wagered. The machines allowed small bets, and would come sion of an audience through television, radio, and the The Interstate Horse Racing Act in 1978 changed the 0 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2007 to dominate horse wagering, even when other forms of bet- Internet, tracks also made money on admission, parking, industry because it established the property rights of racing SOURCE: Maryland Racing Commission ting were outlawed in some states. Previously, people had food, and beverage sales. Off-track betting, however, is rela- tracks over their own races so they could be transmitted. bought into betting pools or placed bets with bookmakers, tively new. New York was one of the first states to allow The 1974 Kentucky Derby was pirated by New York State Racing of all kinds, steeplechase and flat track, can be which often led to corruption. off-track betting in the 1970s, a practice since adopted by off-track betting sites — back then, Bellocq says, they didn’t found throughout the District today. Those include country- Maryland boasted many famous horsemen, and from virtually all race tracks. think simulcast would amount to much. “Now of course, 80 day races where people don’t bet — for example in Camden, about 1878 through 1882, George Lorillard of the Lorillard “In the ’70s and ’80s you were a standalone race track,” to 85 percent of wagering at a track is off-track.” S.C., at the Colonial and Carolina Cups, well-known and Tobacco family dominated Maryland racing. As Lorillard’s Reed says. “The revenue I can get from you at the track is Those simulcasts allowed racing distribution and may well-attended steeplechases in the fall and spring. There are health declined and he dispersed his stables, New York was different than what I would get from you far away.” have increased its popularity. “We usually measure interest also many on-track and off-track betting locations in pulling ahead as the hub of racing on the East Coast, offer- Today the gambling provides most of the revenue in rac- in our sport almost more by betting handle than by atten- Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. Colonial Downs in ing more tracks and better purses. The Preakness even ing, about 90 percent. Yet the proliferation of wagering has dance,” says Reed. He adds that graphs of handles increased Virginia offers a racing summer season as well as off-track moved to New York and stayed until 1909, when that state, hurt racing. “You just can’t keep oversupplying a product,” until 2003. But he agrees that the spread of gambling has betting and simulcasts. At West Virginia’s Charles Town and among others, banned betting in a nationwide reform move- Reed says. “Racing is starting to see that. How much racing hurt racing. “It exploded in the 1990s — state after state Mountaineer Park tracks, there’s slot machine gambling. ment (that ultimately prohibited alcohol as well). Maryland do you need when you can bet on every track over the coun- started approving riverboat, land based casinos, lotteries,” Portions of gambling proceeds go to fund purses, and the and Kentucky were the only states where you could gamble try at the same time?” The Maryland Jockey Club reported a he says. “The competition caught up to us.” In particular, bigger purses bring in better horses, owners, and breeders. in that era, says Raymond Sauer, a sports economist at 22.5 percent drop in wagering in 2008 over 2007 at its tracks, Maryland is ringed by states that made changes. “Charles Clemson University. Pimlico and Laurel. Total parimutuel handle (wagering) on Town is having a huge negative effect on the horse and The Dinner Party In 1909, the Preakness returned to Pimlico, and built its thoroughbred racing in North America fell by 7 percent in customer population because of their change and Maryland Maryland Gov. Oden Bowie, a horseman himself, attended a reputation through horses like Sir Barton. In 1919, he 2008, according to the Jockey Club. not having that change.” dinner party after the Saratoga races in New York in 1868. As became the first to win the Triple Crown: the Kentucky Joe Kelly covered the 1946 Preakness. “Racing changed Thalheimer notes that there is a decline in horse race Baltimore rebuilt from the Civil War and grew, the city was Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes. Yet the to the point where you can see the racing in your living parimutuel betting because many people play the slots in a race of its own, vying with New York for economic Pimlico race still wasn’t widely known outside of Maryland. room,” he says. “Technology took over and people decided it rather than bet on the horses. In particular, he studied the supremacy on the East Coast, Challmes says. The Baltimore “The Preakness in 1920 was not really on the map,” wasn’t necessary to go into the physical part of it by attend- Mountaineer Park track in West Virginia and found that & Ohio Railroad rivaled New York’s Erie Canal when the Challmes says. “Most of the early Derby winners did not find ing the race track.” parimutuel betting slowed when slots were introduced. B&O became the nation’s first public commercial and their way to the Preakness.” Economist Richard Thalheimer heads a consulting firm “The horse race handle went down on the order of 30 to 40 freight railroad. The city was known for other “firsts” such as That was about to change. In 1920, one of the most in Lexington, Ky. He studies the horse racing industry and percent,” he says.