Preakness: There may be no room for old barn at new Pimlico

Baltimore

Preakness week is full of traditions. Among the least mentioned are the tours. April Smith guides some of them.

“We had so many children here,” she told the Maryland Racing Commission on Wednesday. “It was great to see their interest in everything. I look forward to seeing them come back to see the new Pimlico.”

A lot of the kids come from the neighborhood where Pimlico stands. In January, when 1/ST chairperson Belinda Stronach controversially told NBC that “dense urban settings” were not good for horses, she could have been talking about Park Heights. Plenty of the curious children who have visited the old racetrack in tours that began about 30 years ago never had seen live horses before.

After Preakness day comes and goes Saturday for the 150th time, the wrecking ball is supposed to land on Pimlico. While it would be hard to find anyone sad to see the rotting, 65-year-old grandstand building come down, there is much more sentiment about the old stakes barn going away.

“I’m going to really miss it,” trainer D. Wayne Lukas told reporters this week.

With seven Preakness victories peppering the ’80s, ’90s, ’10s and ’20s, the 89-year-old Hall of Famer is as much a part of the Pimlico fabric as the stakes barn that he will outlive.

“It’s always been one of my favorites, and I speak for the other trainers, too,” Lukas said. “I have never talked to a trainer that worked the Preakness that didn’t enjoy this the most.”

While the rest of Pimlico is overdue for a leveling, the stakes barn has been well-tended through the years, a veritable dormitory for itinerant horses and the camaraderie of their handlers. Smith told the MRC she wants to seize on Lukas’s sentiment for the cornerstone of Pimlico’s backside.

“He could not believe we would be so stupid as to get rid of the Preakness stakes barn,” said Smith, who fronts the Facebook group Friends of Pimlico. “According to the Maryland Stadium Authority, it can’t be moved, so it’s going to be gone. (It is) going to take little pieces of it and put it in the new barn. It’s not the same.”

There is a plan to rebuild a 36-stall barn on or near the footprint of the one that would be coming down on the west side of the Pimlico property. That is if the plan is approved.

Even though the demolition has been promised by Maryland state government authorities this summer, no final blueprint for a rebuilt Pimlico has been finalized. That is despite the fact the state government approved $375 million in bond money more than a year ago.

“From my lens, I am confident that it’s going to happen this time,” said Mike Rogers, executive vice president of 1/ST Racing.

The money has been budgeted before. The Stronach Group, doing business as 1/ST, came to terms with Maryland and the city of Baltimore in 2019 to rebuild both Pimlico and nearby Laurel Park. At the time the plan was to move the racing hub to Laurel and host a boutique spring meet at Pimlico.

Then the Stronach Group balked, saying there was not enough money to do both. With its upper management in flux through the past six years, the redevelopment pendulum has swung from Laurel back to Pimlico.

It was in March 2024, when the current scheme was hatched to level old Pimlico, move the 2026 Preakness to Laurel, have the Stronach Group hand its racing reins to a new Maryland Jockey Club authorized by the state’s public works and stadium boards and bring the Preakness back to a new Pimlico with new management in 2027.

Cynics notwithstanding, the vibe around Pimlico this week says the momentum is moving in that direction with no turning back.

“Where I would say there might be some uncertainty is I’ve seen multiple, different variations of what the new Pimlico is going to look like, so I don’t think that’s been completely solved, but I’m not involved in those discussions,” said Rogers, whose 27 years with 1/ST included his time in charge of Pimlico and Laurel. “I’ve had people reach out (and) ask questions from my experience. I can see that it keeps changing slightly. Maybe they haven’t landed on that, but I’m pretty confident.”

At one point the plan was to shrink the current one-mile main track to 7 1/2 furlongs. That appears to have been shouted down in a hail of criticism. Now the architectural renderings feature a smaller grandstand for 6,000-8,000 people, space to bring in temporary seating for the Preakness and a rebuilt clubhouse that resembles the old one which burned down in 1966.

“People are going to want to come and see this,” former Monmouth Park executive Bill Knauf told The Racing Biz in December shortly after he was named the boss for the new Maryland Jockey Club. “It’s going to be spectacular. There will be all types of different offerings and hospitality. ... I’m a huge subscriber of that, just to get somebody in your facility to introduce them to the racetrack, because racetracks are beautiful, and racing is exciting.”

Whether that and grand plans to build a hotel near a glitzy, downsized Pimlico come to pass remain to be seen. But the old stakes barn looks like it will be a goner.

“Are they going to tear it down?” eight-time Preakness winner Bob Baffert asked this week. “I mean I like this barn. I’d like to take this barn to Santa Anita.”

“Children need to see the real thing,” Smith told the MRC. “I want Mr. Lukas to come around and help support us. That’s my next thing that I’m going to do.”

There have been rumblings of concern that Pimlico could be torn down quickly and that red tape will delay its replacement. With 1/ST signaling its intent to mothball Laurel Park and sell the property after next year, there is more than a little anxiety about the reality of Pimlico’s future. It is not an unfamiliar or even a new feeling.

“Owning a racetrack is not like owning Amazon,” Smith told WBAL in a radio interview going back six years. “Owning a racetrack is like owning a Broadway theater. You have to love it. It’s not going to put your kids through college. You have to really, really love it, and you have to put your heart and soul into it.”

The morning line says the wrecking ball is favored to finish first with the new Pimlico a short price to be right behind, even if it comes with the uncertainty of what it will look like. It also comes with some nostalgically ambivalent feelings.

“Despite its flaws, it’s got a magic to it that a lot of people have expressed in years past, and I feel the same way,” Rogers said. “The change is somewhat challenging, but I guess maybe it’s time as well.”