Timonium, the lone survivor among Maryland’s half-mile tracks, faced an uncertain future as the chairman of the Maryland Racing Commission (J. Newton Brewer Jr.) and president of the local division of the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association (Fendall M. Clagett) voiced their desire to have its racing dates transferred to the mile-track circuit.

When asked about the 86-year-old track’s future, 33-year-old Howard “Max” Mosner Jr., recently hired as acting general manager, replied: “Mr. Brewer keeps maintaining that Timonium would make more money if its dates were transferred on a lease arrangement to the milers, but the truth is that we’re making enough money right here.” Maryland Horse editor Snowden Carter also weighed in: “I’ve got to think that Timonium has a little bit of color and romance that doesn’t exist at the Maryland milers. For my money, Timonium is a fun meeting. No national championships are decided, no hundred thousand dollar purses are distributed, but everyone is close enough to the action to reach out and touch the horses. In a word, I love Timonium. And I hope she never dies.”

• Steeplechase great A. Patrick “Paddy” Smithwick was inducted into racing’s Hall of Fame. The Maryland native was the nation’s champion steeplechase jockey five times and retired with national records for races won (398), stakes won, earnings (more than $1.8 million) and mounts (more than 2,100). Most of his mounts were trained by his brother, D. Michael “Mikey” Smithwick, also a Hall of Famer.
• Two Maryland-bred Kentucky Derby-winning sons of Native Dancer became expatriates after launching stud careers in Maryland. Kauai King, the 1966 Derby winner, was sold to Japanese interests after standing the last two seasons in England. Also winner of the Preakness, he initially stood at his birthplace, Sagamore Farm. After standing his first five years at Glade Valley Farm in Frederick, Dancer’s Image was leased to Daniel Wildenstein for stud duty in Ireland. The gray finished first in the 1968 Kentucky Derby but was disqualified when found to have traces of butazolidin in his system.

• Lexington Park had made 76 starts over a four-year period without winning a stakes before being claimed by David G. Smith for $14,000 at Laurel in December 1972, on the advice of trainer Dickie Dutrow. In nine races after, the 6-year-old Maryland-bred gelding won four, two stakes, topped by Monmouth’s Oceanport Handicap.
  Bred by Allaire duPont, the son of Quadrangle made 209 starts through age 17, won 47 times and earned $357,861. His only stakes wins came in 1973. 
  
  
• Nearctic, one of the greatest stallions to stand in the region, was humanely destroyed at age 19. Bred in Canada by E.P. Taylor, the major stakes winner, by Nearco out of *Lady Angela, and sire of Northern Dancer, was brought to Maryland in 1967 when syndicated for $1.05 million. He stood six seasons at Allaire duPont’s Woodstock Farm in Chesapeake City.