Laurel Racetrack

Verstandig wants ‘Disney’ of racing for Md. tracks

Pikesville developer Carl Verstandig said Tuesday he plans to bid on Maryland’s two thoroughbred race tracks, which were placed back on the auction block just days ago, and would spend more than $20 million on renovating the historic venues.

Verstandig said he never lost interest after Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course were pulled off the list of assets up for auction this spring by their bankrupt owner, Ontario-based Magna Entertainment Corp. Magna requested to place the Maryland properties (and properties in California and Florida) back up for auction in a federal bankruptcy court filing Friday.

“We’re back into it,” said Verstandig, whose company, America’s Realty LLC, redevelops shopping centers in the Baltimore area.

Verstandig said he and his West Coast-based silent partner who owns 14 tracks across the country plan to invest $12 million to $15 million in renovating Pimlico, home of the Preakness Stakes, the second jewel of racing’s Triple Crown.

Renovations would include adding two white-tablecloth restaurants from California and three casual dining or fast-food establishments owned by local entrepreneurs.

The long road to uncertainty

LIZ FARMER
Daily Record Business Writer
May 14, 2009 6:57 PM

On a typical Saturday at Pimlico Race Course, longtime Maryland horse racing reporter Dale Austin could walk into the racetrack’s press box and find it flooded with at least 25 or 30 reporters.

“Pimlico was a red-hot place, the hottest in the East,” said Austin, who covered racing for The Baltimore Sun for 29 years. “You could go up to a window in Washington to get a ticket the day of a Redskins game, and, except for Opening Day, you couldn’t fill up the ballpark for baseball games. But there’d be 20,000 people at the racetrack in Maryland.”

But that was in 1962.

And since that time, perhaps the only thing that the horse racing industry nationwide and in Maryland has done is consistently miss the boat, falling further into obscurity and an uncertain future.

Pimlico, Laurel, Preakness out of auction, but not off the block

LIZ FARMER
Daily Record Business Writer
May 4, 2009 1:56 PM

WILMINGTON, Del. – Although Maryland’s thoroughbred racetracks and the Preakness Stakes have been scratched from the auction block, the tracks’ bankrupt owner and its creditors would still entertain bids for the properties, their attorneys told a Delaware bankruptcy judge Monday.

Maga Entertainment attorney Brian S. Rosen (left) and Kenneth H. Eckstein, who represents the company’s unsecured creditors, after Monday’s bankruptcy hearing.“By no means are we abandoning the possibility that we can sell those assets in the future,” said Magna Entertainment Corp. attorney Brian S. Rosen of New York-based Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP. “We are going to permit parties to do due diligence, and in the extent that a bid comes in that is attractive, the debtors will consider it.”

Kenneth H. Eckstein, who represents the unsecured creditors committee, said that although Magna was withdrawing some highly prized assets from its auction plan — namely, Pimlico Race Course, Laurel Park and the Preakness — the group approved of streamlining the process for now.

Magna removes Laurel, Pimlico and Preakness from auction list

LIZ FARMER
Daily Record Business Writer
May 1, 2009 6:43 PM

In a last-minute move, Magna Entertainment Corp. has taken Maryland’s thoroughbred racetracks and the Preakness Stakes off the auction block, but city and state officials remain cautious about the future of those properties here.

Magna, which had included Laurel and Pimlico racetracks and the Preakness in its list of assets it wanted to auction, has removed those properties from its assets up for sale in its revised auction procedures proposal submitted late Friday afternoon.

The properties belong to the Maryland Jockey Club, which was the Magna asset removed from the auction proposal. The Bowie Training Center in Prince George’s County is also no longer up for auction.

“We are still looking at our alternatives with respect to those assets, and it is unclear what value can be generated,” said Magna’s attorney, Brian S. Rosen of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in New York. “Pimlico, with the Preakness, for 364 days a year it lives on that one day a year, and we’re trying to see if there something else that can be done to those assets.”

That includes looking at slots options and further discussions with the state, Rosen said.

Wagering at Laurel Park falls 26 percent

LIZ FARMER
Daily Record Business Writer
April 21, 2009 7:52 PM

After a racing season at Laurel Park marked by the poor economy and the bankruptcy of its owner, total wagering at the track dropped by nearly 26 percent this winter — nearly three times the national average.

Over 58 live racing days — one fewer than last winter — the total amount wagered dropped by $56 million to $219.8 million, according to the Maryland Jockey Club. Laurel’s season ran from Jan. 1 through April 11.

According to the Equibase Company LLC, an industry research firm based in Kentucky, wagering in the U.S. from Jan. 1 through March 31 totaled $3.1 billion, a decline of 9.4 percent from the corresponding period in 2008.

Tim Rice, an industry analyst with Rice Voelker LLC in Louisiana, called Laurel’s struggle “significantly worse” than other tracks’ since the economic downturn began last fall and attributed the gap to competition from neighboring states.

Magna can’t bundle properties

LIZ FARMER
Daily Record Business Writer
April 20, 2009 8:31 PM

The state’s position in its fight to keep the Preakness Stakes got a little stronger Monday after a judge ruled that Magna Entertainment Corp.’s Maryland properties could not be bundled with its out-of-state properties in the bankruptcy auction process.

If bankruptcy judge Mary F. Walrath hadn’t ruled in Maryland’s favor, there’s no way the state could have matched bids for the Preakness, Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park, said Raquel Guillory, spokeswoman for the Office of the Attorney General.

“It seems clear that the company is now seriously taking into account the importance of the state’s regulatory and public interest of the racing industry here in the state and it’s certainly a welcome move,” she said.

Tracks draw interest from 2 prominent Baltimoreans

LIZ FARMER
Daily Record Business Writer
April 2, 2009 6:21 PM

With another Baltimorean showing interest in rescuing Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course, keeping the Preakness Stakes from leaving the state may easier than solving the long-term problems of the Maryland racing industry.

“The state is going to have to come to grips with how to save racing in the state — we can’t just do it with keeping 40 racing days at Laurel and one race [Preakness] at Pimlico,” Alan Foreman, general counsel for the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, said Thursday.

A spokesman for Baltimore developer David S. Cordish said Thursday that Cordish plans to bid for Pimlico, Laurel, the Preakness and the Bowie Training Center, which Magna Entertainment Corp. has put up for sale. Magna, more than $553 million in debt when it declared bankruptcy on March 5, is accepting bids for its assets until July 8.

Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos also met with state officials last month to offer his help in ensuring the second jewel of racing’s Triple Crown stays here.

Senate President Miller: Buy Preakness, build track if Magna sells

LIZ FARMER
Daily Record Business Writer
March 17, 2009 8:05 PM

Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. said Tuesday that the state should consider building a racetrack and buying the Preakness Stakes if Pimlico’s bankrupt owner is forced to sell it.

Alan Forman, general council for the Maryland Thoroughbred Horseman's Association, speaks to the Maryland Racing Commission during Tuesday’s meeting at Laurel. Commission Chairman John B. Franzone, left, and Commissioner Louis Ulman listen.But at a meeting of the Maryland Racing Commission later in the day, Maryland Jockey Club owner Tom Chukas said it is “business as usual” right now.

“The bottom line is Maryland live racing will continue, simulcasting will continue and Preakness will continue,” he said.

Chuckas noted that since parent company Magna Entertainment Corp. declared bankruptcy on March 5, the Jockey Club has received a $13.4 million loan to continue operations while the corporation reorganizes.

Miller, D-Calvert and Prince George’s, told reporters Tuesday morning that building a track and buying the Preakness, by far Pimlico Race Course’s biggest money-maker, would be “last ditch” options the state might have to consider to keep Preakness here.

Racing is important to Maryland, Miller added, pointing to stories about George Washington coming from Virginia to wager on horses in Annapolis.

After bankruptcy filing, Magna to seek approval to sell all its assets

LIZ FARMER
Daily Record Business Writer
March 5, 2009 1:54 PM

The future of horse racing in Maryland lurched further toward uncertainty Thursday after the owner of Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course filed for bankruptcy. Magna Entertainment, the company that owns Laurel and Pimlico racetracks, has filed for bankruptcy protection.

To raise cash, Magna Entertainment Corp. said it was selling its race tracks in Florida, California and Texas to its parent company, and would seek court approval to market its “other” assets — including Laurel and Pimlico — during the Chapter 11 process.

The prospect of Pimlico, home of the Preakness Stakes and the biggest racing day in Maryland, and Laurel Park being up for grabs to the highest bidder has state racing officials upset.

“The thing that concerns me is we don’t know who that could be, and someone could come in and ... run [races for] three weeks at Pimlico because the Preakness is a gold mine, then stay dark the rest of the year,” said John Franzone, chairman of the Maryland Racing Commission. “And that’s not acceptable by any means.”