The Preakness Stakes is a Mess and it may cost Maryland the Triple Crown

Read between the lines, and you will find that the Preakness Stakes may not be long for the state of Maryland. The second leg of the Triple Crown is an absolute mess, for a variety of reasons. Change is inevitable, but what exactly that looks like is anyone’s guess.

From 1997-2004, seven horses showed up to the Belmont with a chance to win the Triple Crown. Since 2019, five Kentucky Derby winners have not even shown up for the Preakness Stakes.

The absence of a Derby winner removes all of the allure to the second leg of the Triple Crown. Horsemen will blame the quick, two-week turnaround for the weaker field. This year, Golden Tempo isn’t the only big-name horse to skip the race. Bob Baffert’s Crude Velocity was dominant in the Pat Day Mile and would have been the morning line favorite, but is staying in the barn a little longer to point toward a summer at Saratoga.

On the surface level, this is an enormous problem for the Preakness Stakes’ future in the state of Maryland, but like an iceberg, if you look below the surface, the problems are even greater.

Maryland Loses Rights to the Preakness Stakes

This problem is two-fold. Kentucky Derby winners draw casual fans to their televisions to watch the Preakness Stakes. This is the last year of NBC’s deal to broadcast the second leg of the Triple Crown. It will be the second straight year of poor ratings for the race, devaluing the rights before they hit the open market.

The Preakness Stakes also has new rights holders. A week before the Kentucky Derby, Churchill Downs Inc. announced they purchased the intellectual property rights to the Preakness Stakes from 1/ST for $85 million. In the release, CDI said it would lease the race to the state of Maryland for an annual fee.

In theory, they could sublicense the Preakness to another racetrack in another state. Speaking of…

Pimlico is Destroyed and Rebuilding has been a Disaster

As the sport of horse racing shrinks, states are consolidating their racetracks. New York invested $455 million to completely renovate Belmont Park, which is scheduled to open this fall. While under construction, NYRA races moved to Aqueduct. The 130-year-old racetrack will be shuttered for good once Belmont is ready to roll, with its final race day on June 28.

Maryland was preparing to follow a similar plan. Instead of operating two racetracks, the plan was to tear down Pimlico and, while spending more than $400 million to rebuild it, run all races at Laurel Park, the host of this year’s Preakness. That plan might get blown up.

Pimlico was a dump that needed to be fixed long ago. Maryland dragged its feet for too long, and now it may be too late. The initial plan was to rebuild Pimlico and use another site as a training center. It’s complicated, but here are bullet points on how it’s gone wrong:

— Maryland bought farmland for a training center for $4.5 million. Then they got buyer’s remorse when they learned it would cost way too much money, about $100 million, to build a training center. The Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority was shut down for mismanaging this decision.

— Maryland tried buying Laurel Park. Instead of using farmland, they’d simply move all training operations to Laurel Park at a cost of $48.5 million. The deal was announced two weeks ago, but now the state is imposing a 45-day delay to go over the finances. That doesn’t sound good.

— Political questions. During a routine meeting, which was supposed to approve about $4 million in construction equipment, Maryland State Treasurer Dereck Davis asked a simple question that many more are asking.

“I get the history of horse racing, but at some point, you know, we have to get to it sink or swim,” Davis said. “Can it survive? We can’t keep pouring massive amounts of dollars into this industry, just for the third weekend in May.”

Uncertain Future for the Preakness Stakes

Horsemen don’t seem to want to run in the Preakness Stakes. Now, politicians are asking if it’s even worth the investment to try to bring the Triple Crown back to Maryland. Changing the dates of the Triple Crown could appease the former, but is it that easy a fix? Based on how the “Pimlico Plus” project has gone so far, there are very few reasons to believe that Old Hilltop will be race-day ready anytime soon.

While the state of Maryland struggles to get its ducks in a row, the Preakness Stakes is now owned by the most buttoned-up corporate overlords in the industry, Churchill Downs Inc. CDI has transformed the Kentucky Derby into a profitable machine that draws ratings comparable to the NFL. They aren’t buying the Preakness to not make money.

If the state of Maryland does not get its act together, CDI has numerous racetracks that would happily host the Preakness Stakes, and the power to move the date of the race to appeal to the horsemen, creating a stronger Triple Crown field. CDI purchased Richmond, Virginia’s Colonial Downs in 2022. They could move the race from Maryland, but still keep it in the Mid-Atlantic. It wouldn’t be the first time the Preakness was held outside of Maryland. It was held in the Bronx and on Coney Island at the turn of the 20th century.

Horse racing is in a precarious place, but big race days are still incredibly profitable. At this juncture, there’s no telling where the Preakness Stakes will ultimately land in this high-stakes Triple Crown juggling act.