Pimlico Special Not Being Carded This Year
 

That's a shame but to be honest, while Invasor won it last year, it was hardly a race that should have had a $600K purse. It would be nice if they could maybe increase the purse of the Schaefer, I think that's the race run the next day, and maybe get a couple better horses.

This might help maryland get slots now...I live in PA so I'm not sure how far alone they are with talks about slots.

I don't think the cancellation of the Pimlico Special will affect the slot debate.

I love how the MD Jockey Club does stuff like cancel big races as some sort of threat to the state legislature. What they don't realize is, like the folks who cancel the MassCap every year, people in Maryland just don't care about racing anymore. With a new administration up there, I doubt slots are foremost on their agenda.

Not surprised. Maryland horse racing is suffering with the politics off not allowing slots,ect... Charlestown and Delaware got the jump. I grew up a stone throws away from Laurel. Kent D and Prado, King T.Leatherbury days gone but not forgotten. Breeding is about all thats left?

There are only a few serious tb commercial farms left in Maryland. Not For Love has been a success, but aside from him, only Louis Quatorze made the top 100 sires list in 2006.

Charles Town is pretty much just a stones throw away, and every night they have tons of people from the DC-MD-VA metro area heading up there to play the slots. Plus Dover, Harrington, Delaware Park, now Philly are just 2-3 hour trip.

I like your optimism but I seriously doubt MD gets slots any time soon, if ever for that matter. The state has 3 “big” racing days (IMO) Black Eyed Susan, Preakness, and Maryland Million (maybe the DeFrancis Dash would be a 4th). Canceling one of the biggest races of year does not have me hopeful about the future of racing in the state of MD.

Hate to bring this up, but I also wouldn’t be in shock in Frank and the boys try to make another push to move the Preakness to another track


-bt-

Don't forget Penn National is probably no more than 60-70 miles from the Maryland border as well for those folks out towards York.

I think it's such a shame. The Pim Special has been historically one of the most prestigious races and now it gets thrown in the trash every few years.

Don't forget this is the race where some loony hopped over the rail and punched Artax during the race in 1999.

No, that was the Sprint on Preakness Day. The Pim Special is at 1 3/16ths and lately has been run the day before.

You're right. I had thought it was a route, but that would have been incorrect. I'm all about being inaccurate today.

some loony hopped over the rail and punched Artax during the race in 1999.

That was the funniest thing I have ever seen in sports. Some guy did something very similar at Santa Anita one year.

Oh my goodness!
:eek:

LOL! That punch reminds me of a drunk guy who went after me at a bar once.

I love how the guy just stands there after taking the swing like he is saying "oh, drat! I missed that Chop Chop guy!" I figure he would have tried to run.

Sorry to see it go, but one less option for the better horses out there is probably a good thing...

The thing is this just encourages everyone to wait even longer to start a top horse. There are now no two turn G1s on the dirt for older males on the east coast between the Donn on 2/3 and the Suburban on 6/30. That is doing nothing towards improving the quality of racing year round.

Except the Stephen Foster but I tend to agree with you.

Seek Gold must have pushed that one out of my mind as a G1. Even worse though, make it June 16th instead of June 30th and now both the races will be diluted since no one is going to run in both. At least the Special gave you the opportunity to come back in the Foster or the Suburban.

That's disappointing. I was actually planning on going this year. I even mentioned that in a post a few weeks ago.

I hope it wasn't something I said!

--Dunbar

Maybe they'll be show up in the Met Mile or Stephen Foster instead...

If there's one thing racing does not need... it's more Grade 1s. The less the better at this point...

I don't think this is your average GI race though. Lots of history here.

Though I don't think any of us should be surprised. The once prestigious Laurel Futurity is no longer graded. This is the fate of Maryland racing.

i live in western md. i'm 70-90 minutes from the baltimore tracks. we don't go down that way. the traffic is terrible, they charge to get into the track. they have a seat charge for the dining room and the cost of drinks were rediculous ($3.00 for soft drinks, per glass). not to mention the neighborhoods around pimlico are NOT the best anymore.

we can be at an OTB in Pa. in 20-30 minutes or go to charlestown in 45 minutes. we can have a nice dinner play the horses and my wife plays some slots. it's clean comfortable and the neighborhood is decent.

the represenitives from western md are against slots. part of the fight is, they don't want to open slots or OTB's acrossed the state. they are tring to keep them in baltimore at the tracks. so the rest of the state does not get the benefits of jobs created.

2007 slots are already a dead issue last i read BUT with the new administration they are willing to talk about it for 2008. thats just plan politics! the last adminstration fought tooth and nail for slots and could not get it through after promising magna it would.
this state WON'T wake up until the Preakness is gone!

All thanks to former Gov. PARRIS GLENDENING. This is the guy who shot down slots every year while in office, now people are following in his footsteps. Rumor has it, Glendening's grandparents were compulsive gamblers and he watched them go through ALL their money playing the slots ... so that's why he was so against the idea in the first place

IMO slots generate revenue and provide tons of employment as well as tax money. But, slots bring in a "bad element", as if maryland needed more help. I think crime would increase drastically. If it didn't help horse racing out i wouldn't care for slots at all. Sooo many times i go up to places like Charles Town and i see the out of state buses shuttling more and more people in, i say why not pay the extra $50 or so and head up to AC? When slots come into a race track it definitely brings a new breed to the grounds, one i don't care for much either

-bt-

If you've been to Charles Town, I'm sure you would agree the slots have actually improved the clientele. I can't imagine the same wouldn't be the case at Laurel or Pimlico or Timonium.

we'd be plenty happy to spend our money in state IF we could.

we've been over to CT on saturdays for dinner and the races and seen people playing slots that look like they are playing their last dime! other times we've seen s more "up scale" clientele.

you are correct about Md. actracting criminals. i live in and work for the city of hagerstown. i'm a serviceman for the light dept. with 20 years service. you would NOT Beleive the amount of trash that has moved in to hagerstown! because I81 and I70 intersect. easy access east-west, north-south.
i honestly don't feel safe somedays doin my job and hagerstown is only a city of 30,000 people.

And the galling thing is that the Foster is only 9f (not a real test - under some conditions, milers can look like champs winning these) and not 10f, or the Pimlico equivalent. And the Suburban is not a 2-turn race, because it is run at Belmont.

The lack of a national authority mandating races of varied types around the sections of the country is another drag on the sport. As long as each track/state authority is free to move its races anywhere it wants, shorten them at will, cancel at will, scheduling chaos is always going to be a possibility.

EXACTLY!! History and tradition are the one thing that horse racing has that many other sports don't have. Pro baseball has it; pro basketball doesn't. Racing was the sport of choice for our early presidents (Washington, Jefferson, Jackson); Congress recessed for a day to go see a match race in Maryland between two champions; the great North-South match between American Eclipse and Henry in the 1820s drew tens of thousands of people from all over the country to the Union course on Long Island before the days of railroads.

Long histories of stakes races allow us bring of the names of winners of the past who have become immortals, implying the same fate is possible for today's winner. The Pimlico Special (like the Saratoga Special) was originally a winner-take-all race - no purse money for second, third, etc, which made it truly special; only horses who really had a chance to win would run. Maybe a return to that sort of race for $300K would generate some interest and still open up some money for overnight purses.

Just look at the horses who won this race:

War Admiral, Seabiscuit, Whirlaway, Tom Fool, Skip Away, and many more.

I actually look forward to this race more than the BES on the day before Preakness. It's really too bad.

I bought Preakness tickets this year entirely for the reason that I could catch the Special the day before and make a two day track trip out of it. I couldn't care less about the Black Eyed Susan so am pretty pissed about this. At least the Oaks draws good horses.

Well, Ashado got her butt beat by Silmaril on the BES undercard in 2005. That was star power. Last year, you could have seen the American debut of Invasor. This year, you'll have to settle for Ramon Dominquez's horse being placed first in the Black Eyed Susan for no apparent reason.

That reminds me, I still need to buy my Preakness seats.

Yeah, that four horse field in the slop, where Ashado lost, still sends shivers down my spine.

My favorite part about that day? I would have to say the windows being completely fogged over in the dining room, due to the horrible weather, so you couldn't even see outside.

[quote=SniperSB23]I bought Preakness tickets this year entirely for the reason that I could catch the Special the day before and make a two day track trip out of it. I couldn't care less about the Black Eyed Susan so am pretty pissed about this. At least the Oaks draws good horses.[/QUOTE

at the risk of sounding dumb i'll ask this anyway.
why doesn't the BES draw better than it does?

That day sucked. I made the mistake of buying apron seats that year for both days. That wasn't bad on Preakness day, but when it was 45 and raining for the Black Eyed Susan as well as the Funny Cide Pimlico Special, it blew chunks.

imo, nobody is interested in sweeping the Ky Oaks, BES, Acorn....the KY Oaks is more prestegious and a lot of owners/trainers won't run back in 2 weeks.

could be off...who knows.

It is a G2 and is only 2 weeks after the Oaks. The Preakness has a tough enough time getting the Derby horses back in two weeks so it is even harder to get them to come back for a G2. Plus running in the G2 BES hurts your chances of being ready for the G1 Acorn three weeks later.