Is Maryland racing in “best place” in eight years?
Purchase of Laurel as training center would clarify way forward
Frank Vespe
February 17, 2026
A Maryland Stadium Authority presentation to the state Racing Commission Feb. 11 didn’t break much new ground. But it laid bare the lengthy distance yet to travel before a new Pimlico and supporting training center are operational.
The meeting was the Racing Commission’s first since the announcement that the Stadium Authority had entered negotiations with the Stronach Group with the intention of buying Laurel Park to use as the new training center. It was also one of very few public briefings the Commission has received on the fits and starts of the so-called Pimlico Plus plan.
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If the Laurel purchase is completed, that will enable the Maryland Jockey Club (TMJC) to conduct all training at Laurel and will obviate the need for training operations at Pimlico.
Under that scenario, MSA executive vice-president Gary McGuigan told the Commission, the Authority expects to spend about $400 million on Pimlico and $120 million on the training center. Those funds will come from a combination of moneys already accrued via horsemen’s and other contributions and the $400 million in bonds the Authority is empowered to issue to support the project, of which about $238 million has been sold.
“We were in a pretty bad spot 12 to 18 months ago,” McGuigan said. Now, he added, “We’re in the best place I’ve seen racing in the last eight years.”
Cutting training and its “numerous barns and operational administrative spaces,” McGuigan said, will allow for an additional 1,000 parking spaces on the Pimlico property. It will also save about $26 million on construction costs at Pimlico.
The state had previously purchased Shamrock Farm in Woodbine for about $4.5 million to serve as the training center. But, McGuigan said, after the Authority began to get “some cost information back,” the price tag for turning Shamrock into a training center had zoomed from the statutorily required minimum spend of $110 million up to more than $210 million.
Since both the Pimlico and training center projects are funded by one budget, every dollar spent on the training center is a dollar not available for the new Old Hilltop.
Horsemen generally endorse Laurel as the training facility. Many of them live nearby, and, among other benefits, its 142-foot wide turf course – substantially wider than Pimlico’s — offers the possibility of conducting “turf festival” racing at an advantageous location.
“We are actively protecting the state and the horse community” by doing appropriate due diligence prior to purchasing Laurel, McGuigan said – something, he intimated, that the now-defunct Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority had failed to do when purchasing Shamrock.
“I think this is the best thing that we could ever dream about to have Laurel be retained as training center,” said Commission chairman George Mahoney. “We have the infrastructure here. We have the facilities here, the horsepower here, and I think it’s a great outcome.”
Assuming things fall into place – and so far, at any rate, the history isn’t promising – the plan is for the Preakness to be conducted at Laurel this May and then at Pimlico in 2027. The clubhouse, however, will not be open to the public in 2027, and most other racing that year is likely to be at Laurel.
In 2028 the Preakness will take place at the new Pimlico, with its clubhouse open and fully operational.
That clubhouse, McGuigan said, will include a 500-person wagering room and a 350-person restaurant, as well as seating, though for events such as the Preakness, most of the capacity will come from overlay structures. It will not include the 1,000-person event center the MTROA had sought, saving the project another $23 million, McGuigan said.
Advocates have sought, mostly unsuccessfully, more information on the Pimlico clubhouse and the property in general: what it will look like, what it will include. During public comments, one of them, Friends of Pimlico’s April Smith, lamented the degree to which the project has been a black box.
But the Commission’s Mahoney said that, at this point, that did not concern him.
“I think we all want more information concerning the revitalized Pimlico,” he said. “I think that’s normal and natural, but I know they’re working diligently to move forward with the drawings, and things change in construction. In time, we’ll have something, I can assure you.”
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