Rosecroft will reopen for simulcast betting -- bets placed at Rosecroft on races being run at other harness tracks. Owner Penn National Gaming, which bought the Fort Washington track out of bankruptcy in February, plans to bring back live racing on Oct. 21. The 20 racing days will be the first season for the track since the former owner halted racing three years ago.

Live horse racing may soon be back on it's way to Prince George's County's Rosecroft Raceway after a more than three year drought. The track's new owner, Penn National Gaming, was conditionally awarded a racing license this week by the Maryland Racing Commission.

Under the conditions set forth by the commission, Penn National, which bought the track out of bankruptcy earlier this year, must guarantee the track’s operations through 2012. Rosecroft must host 20 live racing meets through the end of this year and 54 in 2012. Under those conditions, racing can return to Prince George’s County as soon as August 1.

In a thinly veiled ruse to make FedEx Field's capacity smaller so it doesn't look so pathetic halfway through the season when Redskins fans have stomached just about all they can, the team is selling off actual seats beginning Wednesday.

The seat removal is part of the team's end zone renovation in which two, standing-room-only party decks are being installed in place of several thousand seats. The team is selling off 800 actual end zone seats for $250 a pop. The money will go to the Redskins Charitable Foundation.

The rating, released by ESPN The Magazine, comes despite Forbes' rating of the Redskins as the second-most financially valuable team in football and in the top 10 of all major leagues. But experts say the team's worsening relationship with its fans will start taking a financial toll.

The $25,000 feasibility study will tally up the potential economic benefits to the county -- including Redskins players' multimillion-dollar incomes and property taxes.

Prince George's, which requested the study, is paying for one-third of its cost. The Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development will match that amount, while the Maryland Stadium Authority, which is conducting the study, will cover the remaining third.

It's a tough question for horse racing enthusiasts: is subsidizing Maryland racing just ignoring the real issue? Sure we all love those iconic images from horse racing's heyday when tracks were the hot place to be and the clubhouse at Pimlico in Baltimore was teeming with society's elites.

But those days are long gone. Like decades ago long gone. Yet the fight to preserve the sport is still strong — in today's Washington Examiner story about Maryland racing's increasing reliance on other gambling, breeders say the sport needs a full season to keep horse farms here.

Horse farms are also good for tourism and a part of Maryland's proud history. Heck, the Maryland Jockey Club (founded in 1743) is older than the state itself. But even people who slept most of their way through Economics 101 can tell you that without demand, supply should dwindle.

horse racing tradition in precarious transition, as an industry that long opposed other forms of gambling becomes dependent on its competition for survival.

Maryland horse racing isn't alone in its deepening reliance on other gambling to boost the payouts at racetracks. Tracks in Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia have been buoyed by slot machine profits for years and, more recently, table game revenue. Even Churchill Downs, home of the hallowed Kentucky Derby, is trying to bring slots to the track.

We've all had our fun with Kegasus, the half-man, half-horse, beer-chugging mascot of the Preakness Stakes Infieldfest this year. But here's a fun (and by fun, we mean dorky) fact: the actual mythological creature Pegasus wasn't half-man, half-horse. That's a centaur. Oops!

Turns out the ad brains at Elevation Ltd. responsible for the controversial campaign actually do know the difference between a pegasus (the winged horse) and a centaur.