This time of year, tents are always part of the landscape at Pimlico Race Course and signal the coming of Preakness Day with its thousands of spectators, world-class horses, celebrities, big racing names, millions in wagering handle and massive economic impact.
Last summer I began a column in this space with a line from John Steinbeck’s novel Travels with Charley. It went like this: “. . . the end is not in question. It’s the means – the dreadful uncertainty of the means.”
Welcome to uncertainty, Thoroughbred racing. Dreadful uncertainty.
Betty Moran was an automatic. In the early days of Steeplechase Times, my first real foray into writing about Thoroughbred racing, I’d ask Mrs. Moran (she was always Mrs. Moran to me, even if she probably would have been OK with Betty) to buy an advertisement for the Radnor Hunt Races. She’d say yes to a full page, we’d run it on the back cover and send her a bill.
Aron Wellman is a West Coast guy. He lives in Rancho Santa Fe, which could only be in California. As a kid, he hung out with Bill Shoemaker and Eddie Delahoussaye. Wellman went to U.C. Santa Barbara, practiced law in L.A. In January, he paused a telephone conversation to interject, “Dolphins, 12 o’clock,” to a companion.
Maybe we saw the future at Fasig-Tipton Midlantic’s December mixed sale, where established racehorses were on sale and in demand.
Horses don’t make history too often, but that’s what Sharing did when she landed the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf-G1 at Santa Anita last month. Sagamore Farm, Maryland and the region came along for the ride.
When I heard the particulars of the new plan to rebuild Maryland’s Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park, three words came to mind.
Make it happen.
Can you see the future? Squint at Fair Hill with me.
The state of Maryland is building a state-of-the-art turf course on the 5,600-acre Department of Natural Resources property in Cecil County. Home to a steeplechase meet since 1934, the race course sits across Md. 273 from its now more famous neighbor Fair Hill Training Center. The historic course was known for tight turns, long straightaways, firm ground, oddball wagering results (don’t even think about trying to figure out the per-capita), funnel cake, the beer truck, sunburn and a handful of historic racing moments mixed in with some not-at-all historic racing moments.
