For all of the wet weather and gloomy skies at Pimlico Race Course this week, the winds of change have been swirling in Maryland for much longer than a week or even a year.

Alan Foreman, a longtime Maryland racing leader and an architect of the Maryland redevelopment plan, remembers talking about substantive plans to change the face of the sport in the state for at least six years.

“It’s been six years since 2019 when I was brought in to help figure out this situation,” he said. “The world has been skeptical of this plan for a long time. People lost focus of it or think it won’t happen, and to this day I get it. But it is happening now.”

Indeed it is. Finally.

On May 17, the 150th edition of the Preakness Stakes (G1) will mark the last one at what will eventually be known as the old Pimlico Race Course. 

There’s a new operator at Pimlico in the new, nonprofit Maryland Jockey Club, taking over from 1/ST Racing and the previous version of the Maryland Jockey Club.

Laurel Park will be shuttered in a few years and horsemen who cannot gets stalls at Pimlico will eventually have a new $110 million training center in Woodbine, Md., which is about a 25-minute drive from Baltimore. Construction on the facility at Shamrock Farm is expected to begin by the start of 2026.

And best of all, in time for the 2027 Preakness, there will be a smaller but much more modern facility at Pimlico that will serve as the year-round home for racing in the state.

“For a lot of people it’s bittersweet but very exciting at the same time,” said Bill Knauf, a former Monmouth Park executive who is now president and general manager of the Maryland Jockey Club. “A lot of people feel it’s something that has been talked about for a long time in Maryland and I can appreciate the excitement of it actually happening. Once everyone sees the images of the building coming down, it’s another indication that something new is coming.”

Once Saturday’s final race is contested, work on dismantling Pimlico will proceed full bore with the demolition of the grandstand/clubhouse structure—where the grandstand is already condemned and closed—expected to start in June.

“It’s been a historic building but it’s time,” Knauf said. “Everybody agrees with that. It’s had a great run but it has run its course. There are renderings posted that show we are going to honor the history and traditions of Baltimore and Pimlico. It will be historic but modernized for today’s amenities.”

While Pimlico’s racing surfaces will not be altered, the new grandstand/clubhouse will be considerably smaller, housing maybe 6,000-8,000 fans on a regular basis.

“It’s not finalized but attendance will be 6,000-8,000. We will also have infrastructure in the stretch and infield that can house whatever we will need for Preakness or Black-Eyed Susan days. We haven’t decided on an attendance for the Preakness day, though it will be a substantial number with temporary structures,” Knauf said. “It’s the right size for the vast majority of the time but then we can flex up for the Preakness and Black-Eyed Susan. Maybe there’s a Breeders’ Cup down the line and we will have Maryland Million Day. Hopefully there’s a lot of big days like that. We want to bring excitement and increased attendance on a daily basis and put Maryland racing back on the map.”

Knauf said the construction work will provide an opportunity to perform any necessary work on the dirt and turf courses to prepare for a far more extensive use of Pimlico.

“We will have to make some adjustments for winter racing but the Pimlico surface has always been raved about as a consistent surface and one the horsemen love running on it,” Knauf said. “They’re already excited about the chance to run on Pimlico’s surfaces all year long.”

As for Pimlico’s infield on Preakness day, what was once the home of the part man/part horse Kegasus, a decision has not made about the infield festivals conducted by 1/ST Racing that over the years have featured top musical acts for the younger generations and discount pricing on heavily consumed alcoholic beverages.

“We haven’t finalized plans for infield activities,” Knauf said. “The goal is to provide something for everyone. The high-end hospitality tents are there (in the infield) and you get a unique feel for the stretch run. It’s worked well for years. We also recognize we want to offer something for the general admission fan to enjoy in the infield. I’m not sure if that includes music but we will have a nice program to showcase Pimlico. We’ll explore all of that.”

Knauf also said the MJC is considering constructing a sportsbook at Pimlico and fixed-odds wagering could be on the more immediate horizon.

“We can add a sportsbook and we’ll look at that,” Knauf said. “We’ve already talked with our horsemen and the racing commission about fixed odds and I can foresee us dipping our toes into it. When I was at Monmouth, the people using fixed odds loved it.”

Even with the new management having control of day-to-day racing in Maryland, 1/ST Racing, the previous operator, will still be in the picture for the next year and a half. It will conduct the Black-Eyed Susan and Preakness cards this year at Pimlico and in 2026 at Laurel Park. Then in 2027 and beyond 1/ST Racing will receive a license fee and a percentage of the handle for those days.

After Saturday, Laurel Park, which is owned by 1/ST Racing, will become the home to Maryland racing until Pimlico reopens.

“We have to be out of Laurel by Jan. 1, 2028, or we will have to pay rent to be there,”  Foreman said. “It’s in everyone’s best interest to be done by then.”

In recent years, the relationship between Maryland horsemen and 1/ST was contentious, to say the least, but Knauf said the atmosphere has been more tranquil now that the new MJC has the reins.

“Since I’ve been here I have had nothing but positive relationships with the horsemen. The nature of the relationship is different than with a private operator. We are a non-profit that was formed by the State of Maryland. We are here for the racing industry and the community.

“When we can hopefully turn a profit down the road, the profits will go to the racing industry and local community. I’ve worked closely and effectively with horsemen at Monmouth and have found the same type of relationship here.”

And so as the sun sets on the old Pimlico, there will be a wide array of emotions after Saturday’s final race.
Nostalgia will generate sadness given all of the great moments associated with the track and the Preakness.

Yet for others, it’s the future of the sport that matters more than the building. The decaying, crumbling 75-year-old facility that took so long to replace, to them was a sign of dark times that will finally give way to a much brighter future.

“I’m not sad to see it go. Pimlico highlights one of racing’s biggest problems. The sport has failed to modernize in the face of tremendous competition from other sports that are thriving because they made their facilities destinations that people want to see,” Foreman said. “If you are going to develop a new core group of fans, you need facilities that can compete with other sports and Pimlico personified what’s wrong with this sport. Not only is it exciting to have new facilities that will invigorate the horse racing industry, but they will spur redevelopment in the area. You’ve seen it happen in other sports and hopefully in time it can happen here.”  

Flash floods sparked by heavy rain hit parts of Virginia, western Maryland and Pennsylvania on Tuesday, leaving a 12-year-old boy missing in Virginia and forcing elementary schools in rural Maryland to evacuate, authorities said.

Severe flooding has left parts of Meyersdale Borough in Somerset County underwater after heavy rains pounded the area on Tuesday.

In a message posted Tuesday night on social media, the Albemarle County Fire Rescue service in Virginia said county police had received a call late in the afternoon about a boy being swept away by a flood-swollen creek. The fire department said search efforts had to be put on hold after about three hours, “due to limited visibility in the overnight hours and the safety of all those involved.”

The fire and rescue service said the search would resume on Wednesday, and it warned residents not to “self-deploy” in attempt to find the missing child as conditions remained dangerous.

Another elementary school in the region was also evacuated, and students at a middle school were told to shelter in place for a while on Tuesday, according to the Allegany County Department of Emergency Services.

Homes flooded in southern Pennsylvania

Residents in low-lying areas of Meyersdale, near the Maryland border in Pennsylvania’s Somerset County, were ordered to evacuate Tuesday as the Casselman River rose precipitously.

“We are seeing flooding in the majority of the houses in town,” Meyersdale Mayor Shane Smith said, according to KDKA, CBS Pittsburgh. “Some even as high as the first floor. Roads throughout the area are being destroyed by the fast-moving water… This is some of the most severe flooding we’ve ever seen.”

Smith declared a state of emergency for Meyersdale. He said there were no reported injuries, and that both federal and state emergency management personnel were expected in the town on Wednesday to help coordinate the response.

There were also reports of flood and storm related road closures and some damage in Bedford and Campbell Counties in Virginia, and a hospital being partially flooded in eastern Tennessee, near the Virginia state line. Authorities said two women had to be rescued from an inundated vehicle on a washed out road in Bedford

Rural western Maryland schools forced to evacuate

About 100 miles north, in the far western corner of Maryland, the North Branch Potomac River and some tributaries burst their banks on Tuesday, forcing the evacuation of schools and businesses.

According to KDKA, about 150 students and 50 adults had to be evacuated from the Westernport Elementary School. The floodwaters rose so quickly and entered the building that brothers William and Quinton Wade were left trapped inside with dozens of others.

“Whenever we were going down to get in the boat, the first floor was flooded,” Quinton, a second-grader at the school, told KDKA.

“The first floor had been flooded all the way to the ceiling,” added William, who is in fourth grade.

“I didn’t get any call from the school. I didn’t know any plan. I didn’t know anything. So, my instinct was, get my kids,” the boys’ mother Alley Wade told KDKA. She said she rushed from her job to the school, but found the water too high for her to do anything, so she waited while the rescuers in boats saved her kids and dozens of others. 

Alley Wade said she had never seen such severe flooding in their town.

“I have never. Now, I believe there was a bad flood in 1996, but I was 4,” she said.

While the Wades’ home was unscathed, some homes and businesses in Westernport were inundated Tuesday after hours of heavy rain.

In a statement released in the early Wednesday morning hours, Maryland Governor Wes Moore urged people in the affected region to “remain vigilant, heed warnings from local officials, and prioritize safety during this time,” adding: “If you don’t have to go out, please do not go out. Stay off the roads if possible and heed any evacuation orders.”

According to the governor’s office, parts of Allegany County had already seen at least 4.65 inches of rain in 24 hours, and more rain was expected into Wednesday morning.

The statement said the North Branch Potomac River in Cumberland was expected to peak at 22.6 feet Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, “which would mark the highest river crest since 1996.” 

“We remain in close contact with local officials and continue to coordinate resources as the rain continues to fall,” Moore said in the statement.

The flooding comes on the heels of a new study by the climate science group World Weather Attribution, published this week, that found deadly storms that tore through eight U.S. states in the Midwest and South in the first week of April, killing at least 24 people, were made significantly worse by human-caused climate change. 

The group said its analysis showed that human-caused global warming made the record-breaking downpours about 9% heavier than they would otherwise have been.