ANNAPOLIS, Md. — With the stroke of a pen, Governor Wes Moore gave his approval for Maryland to purchase the Pimlico race course.
"One of the very first questions I got was this all sounds great but is it going to happen this time? Well this time it happened," said Greg Cross, chairman of the Maryland thoroughbred racing association.
The state will only spend a dollar to buy the race course.
Once the deal goes through, it will invest in remodeling the track and building more permanent structures that are currently only up for the Preakness.
"Now we finally have the funding, we have the plan, we have the commitment from the current owner, I think we have a path forward," said Cross.
Stronach Group, the current owner, gets $2 million plus a percentage of the betting handle during the Preakness and Black Eyed Susan races.
That money pays for the state to use the Preakness branding.
The group declined to comment.
There is hope the state's ownership brings more development to the surrounding area.
"For the community this is about integrating what happens inside the track with what happens outside the track," said Delegate Malcolm Ruff, a Democrat who represents the neighborhoods around Pimlico.
It's also a welcomed sign for the people who raise and race these thoroughbred horses in Maryland, with plenty of work to be done before the benefits can be seen.
"We're gonna have to move horsemen out of Pimlico this fall, we've got to designate our training center where many of our horsemen will be training and we have to create and implement the not for profit organization that's going to operate the race track," said Alan Foreman with the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association.
The final details are still being worked out and the state expects the sale to be final sometime this summer.
