MARYLAND (WBFF) — On the same track where million-dollar horses once raced, construction crews are now racing to complete a $400 million overhaul of Pimlico Race Course — and Maryland officials have moved to ensure the Preakness Stakes stays firmly tied to that redevelopment.
Two months ago, Churchill Downs announced it would spend $85 million for the intellectual property rights to the Preakness Stakes.
“They thought their expertise could help them build the Preakness and Black Eyed Susan bigger than ever before,” Dick Jerardi, a racing expert and former sportswriter with the Philadelphia Daily News, said.
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But this week, the state of Maryland — which had the first right of refusal on the deal — announced it is matching the $85 million offer from Churchill Downs, keeping the rights to the Preakness in Maryland.
In a statement, the governor said, “This decision secures a vital asset for our state, allows Maryland to shape its horseracing destiny…preserve Maryland’s position as a key power player in the Triple Crown for generations to come.”
Jerardi said the state’s decision reflects the scale of its broader investment at Pimlico.
“I think they ran the numbers and said ‘look we’re investing all this money to rebuild Pimlico and we want to make the Preakness bigger and better than ever yet we have another entity that’s got a piece of our action.’ It doesn’t make any sense,” Jerardi said.
Del. Ryan Nawrocki criticized how the intellectual property rights were handled in earlier negotiations.
“It’s an absurd idea that we allowed this to happen in those negotiations a couple of years ago,” Nawrocki said.
Nawrocki said the state should have negotiated a deal for the Preakness property rights when it hammered out a deal for Pimlico two years ago.
“I think it was allowed to happen because the governor was really excited about announcing a deal and didn’t read the fine print inside this agreement,” he said.
The $85 million price tag will be funded with a revenue bond and paid back with revenue generated from the track. With the state now matching Churchill Downs’ offer, the rights to the Preakness are firmly in the hands of Maryland.
“When you make a bad deal, which apparently this was, you find your best way out of it and everyone ran the numbers and figured out this was the best way out of it,” Jerardi said.
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