Racegoers at Saturday’s Preakness Stakes in Baltimore will be the last to see the race conducted in front of the historic Pimlico grandstand and clubhouse. For nearly all of those witnesses, that won’t be a bad thing. Scheduled to be torn down as early as this winter, the Pimlico grandstand has as much character as an old shoebox, with fewer nooks and crannies. The open-air section was condemned by the city five years ago. The clubhouse section hasn’t received an upgrade other than a wet slap of new paint in decades. The current caretaker of Pimlico, 1/ST Racing (also known in Maryland as The Stronach Group, the corporate entity that owns Pimlico and another Maryland track, Laurel Park) also is on its way out. Legislation passed earlier this year will allow 1/ST to deed Pimlico to the state of Maryland on July 1. As of Jan. 1, a new non-profit operating company will take over the operations of both Pimlico and Laurel, where the brunt of racing over the next three years will take place while Pimlico is rebuilt. The ultimate goal, according to state officials and horsemen’s representatives, is to have a new Pimlico ready to host 100-plus days of racing by Jan. 1, 2028, supported by a new training facility a short distance from Baltimore. But before then, the non-profit operating company needs to become fully staffed by the end of the year, with the help of a new board comprised of racing constituents and representatives of Baltimore and the state. And that company needs to make racing work at Laurel for three years while Pimlico is readied for its starring role. “It’s a heavy lift, but you have to remember, we’ve been looking at this a long time,” said Alan Foreman, the longtime general counsel to the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association and a member of the state-created committee that hashed out the legislation passed this year. “But there’s no question about it. This is a massive change for Maryland racing.” To help the process along, Corey Johnsen, the veteran racetrack executive who led the construction and grand opening of Lone Star Park in Texas, has already been brought aboard as interim chief executive of the non-profit operating company. Johnsen is expected to staff the company’s various departments over the next six months, leaning heavily on those officials who have already been involved in Maryland racing as employees of 1/ST, whose predecessor company took control of Pimlico and Laurel more than two decades ago. :: DRF's Preakness Headquarters: Contenders, latest news, and more The Pimlico grandstand, clubhouse, and barns will all be razed prior to next year’s Preakness, likely near the end of the year. Shortly thereafter, the site will be scraped to pave the way for the future construction. Despite that, next year’s Preakness is being planned for the Pimlico property, even though the racing surfaces will be the only reminder of the racetrack that was once there. Foreman said that local community members and city and state leaders “insisted” that next year’s Preakness be held at the property, in recognition of the race’s 150th anniversary. The inflow of racegoers to Baltimore and the local community because of the Preakness and its surrounding events is a major driver of economic activity, so the site will be prepared with temporary seating options both outside of the racing surface and in the infield, where high-profile musical acts have lately been the draw. “They wanted very much for it to be run there regardless of the construction,” Foreman said. Because the new Pimlico facility is likely to be a much scaled-down version of the present grandstand and clubhouse, and because the Preakness in future years also will rely on myriad temporary ticketing areas, Foreman said that the 2025 event “won’t necessarily be a dry run” for the 2028 Preakness but will allow “people to maybe get a sense of what the Preakness will look like” after the project is complete. Under the deed-transfer agreement 1/ST worked out with the state in advance of the legislation passing, the company will remain responsible for the planning, operation, and costs of the Preakness through 2027, regardless of the where the event is held (the 2026 event is being planned for Laurel, while plans for the 2027 Preakness are “up in the air,” according to Foreman). During those three years, 1/ST also will retain all the revenues from the race, its supporting card, and the card held the Friday before the Preakness, which features the Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan Stakes. After 2027, the non-profit operating company, which will be set up under the aegis of the Maryland Stadium Authority, a state agency, will take over the Preakness. Still, 1/ST will get its cut after that. Under the legislation, the company will get a $3 million upfront payment for the licensing rights to the Preakness in 2028 and beyond, plus a payment equal to 2 percent of the gross wagering on both Preakness Day and Black-Eyed Susan Stakes Day. The payments were essential to making the deal work, Foreman said, despite some grumbling from legislators and local community leaders who have clashed with 1/ST in the past, especially after the company threatened to move the Preakness five years ago. “Look, the value of the Preakness was just far beyond what the state was willing to pay upfront,” Foreman said. “So what followed was this very successful negotiation that led to the license agreement. It turns out to be a good deal for both sides.” Under the legislation, the state is issuing $400 million in bonds to fund the rebuilding of Pimlico and the acquisition of the land for the new training center, along with its construction costs. After 2027, Laurel Park will revert back to 1/ST, which can charge rent to the state operating company if the Pimlico reconstruction is not complete. Laurel is expected to be redeveloped once racing moves to Pimlico permanently. The designs of the new Pimlico track and the training center have yet to be completed, but those two efforts are now top priority for the Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority, the state agency that is acting as a stand-in for the operating company until it is fully formed. The design of one affects the other, Foreman said, so both blueprints have to be settled by the end of the year to hit the construction benchmarks for both sites over the next three years. The Pimlico redevelopment may entail rotating the racetrack to make better use of the entire property, which also may include the building of an amphitheater, a hotel, and perhaps retail spaces. The goal is to turn the property into a year-round revenue producer, an effort that will require buy-in from the local Park Heights community and the city of Baltimore, along with the horsemen who are expecting to race at least 120 days per year at the track. The addition of Johnsen, the former Lone Star and Kentucky Downs executive, is a signal of the project’s direction. A lifelong horse owner and breeder with strong Texas roots, Johnsen is known for his easy rapport with horsemen, executives, and legislators, and at every stop in his long career, he’s roped-in the surrounding community when making significant decisions involving the racetrack. When racing fully returns to Pimlico in 2028, horsemen are likely to have to accept fewer racing dates, concentrated in the fall, winter, and early spring. Racing officials have said that the operating company will struggle to make a profit while maintaining a roughly year-round racing calendar, and now horsemen will be on the hook for any losses. Under the legislation, any shortfall in operating income will be covered through the purse account, which currently receives tens of millions of dollars each year from the state’s casinos. Although opportunities might decline in Maryland, Foreman said that discussions with similar-sized tracks in neighboring states about creating a year-round circuit have accelerated since the legislation was passed. The concept of a mid-Atlantic circuit has been bandied about for decades, but apart from a brief partnership between the Maryland tracks and Colonial Downs in Virginia, the discussions haven’t led to anything significant. Now, however, with foal crops continuing to decline and racetracks cutting race dates, the conditions may be ripe for an agreement. Foreman said the talks have so far focused on Delaware Park, Parx Racing outside Philadelphia, and Monmouth Park. While Parx runs year-round, Delaware and Monmouth both run the majority of their dates in the late spring and summer. “It makes imminent sense to see if there’s an appetite to do it now,” Foreman said. “I think it’s unrealistic to think that the new entity is going to run 160, 170 days, which is what we are doing now, because it’s not feasible. The summertime is your stress period. You have so many tracks operating who are competing for the same type of horses. Maryland’s sweet spot has always been fall, winter, spring. I think that would make the most sense for us.” :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.