Pimlico: Win by Showing the Place for Sale by Clayton Mitchell

It requires a certain species of hubris—rare even among the bureaucratic classes of Annapolis—to imagine that the State of Maryland, which struggles to teach its children to read and fill its potholes on time, is uniquely equipped to rehabilitate a century-old horse racing track and somehow turn it into an economic engine. And yet, here we are: the state has already embarked on a taxpayer-funded effort to revamp the Pimlico Racecourse, sinking public resources into a fading relic in the hope of reviving its former glory.

But that horse has left the barn.

The question now is not whether the state should redevelop Pimlico—it already in progress. The more pressing question, in light of Maryland’s looming multi-billion-dollar structural deficit, is whether the state should continue this quixotic endeavor. The answer is no. It’s time to cut bait, sell the project to a private developer, and let those with the vision, capital, and market discipline to succeed take over.

Let us speak plainly. Horse racing, once the “Sport of Kings,” is now the sport of a niche. The crowds have dwindled, the betting pools have migrated to digital bookmakers, and the cultural cachet of thoroughbred racing, outside of the brief flurry of the Triple Crown, has evaporated like cigar smoke in a stiff breeze. The average Marylander has as much connection to horse racing as he does to the sport of curling, and with considerably less interest. It no longer serves as a public good. It is, at best, a private indulgence.

And yet, the state persists in its delusion that it can restore Pimlico to its former 20th-century glory—not through market forces, but through force of public finance. This is not stewardship. This is a bailout, clothed in the language of tradition and civic pride.

Even if one were to indulge the fiction that Pimlico retains some cultural value to Marylanders at large, one must confront an even more inconvenient truth: it serves virtually no benefit to the people who live around it. The citizens of Baltimore—particularly those in the long-neglected Park Heights neighborhood—do not need horse racing. They do not derive employment from it, nor entertainment, nor any sustained civic benefit. They see, instead, a vast parcel of city land used for a handful of days each year, sealed off the rest of the time, insulated from community needs, and animated chiefly by people who come and go like the horses themselves.

This is not just a poor use of taxpayer dollars. It is a poor use of urban space.

Imagine instead a development vision that actually addressed the public interest: mixed-income housing, green space, athletic fields, small business incubators, medical clinics, cultural venues, and relatable events for the community—not for a roving national set of socialites and bettors. Pimlico, properly reimagined, could become a civic anchor. As it stands, it is an anchor in the more nautical sense: a drag on the city’s forward motion, held in place by the weight of nostalgia and the rope of political inertia.

Meanwhile, we are told that the Preakness generates economic activity. Yes, a burst of temporary revenue. But who profits? Not the local residents. Not the struggling businesses of Park Heights. The primary beneficiaries are the racing industry, visiting elites, and the various vendors who circle the event like camp followers at a traveling circus. That is not economic development. That is pageantry.

And then there is the matter of Maryland’s fiscal reality. The state faces a structural deficit projected to materially worsen over the next five years. Annapolis officials, with straight faces and open palms, are already hinting at the inevitability of new taxes to sustain basic government operations. In such an environment, a $400,000,000 public expenditure on a racetrack is not merely extravagant—it is fiscally grotesque.

Consider what that $400 million could do instead: repair dozens of crumbling schools in Baltimore City; expand broadband access across the rural Eastern Shore and Western Maryland; replenish the state’s depleted transportation trust fund; or invest in behavioral health infrastructure to address the fentanyl crisis. That would be public investment. That would be need-based budgeting. The Pimlico Racetrack project is vanity spending masquerading as vision.

It is the classic conceit of government to believe that because it can spend, it can manage. Running a racetrack is not the business of the state. Managing any enterprise involving marketing, real estate, event production, and private capital is precisely what the state has repeatedly demonstrated it cannot do. A legislature cannot horse-trade its way to a successful business model—though goodness knows it tries.

Let us suppose, for argument’s sake, that horse racing in Baltimore has a future. Let that future be built not by the Annapolis bureaucracy but by private actors who understand the sport and are willing to risk their own capital to see it succeed. A re-privatized Pimlico would live or die on its merits. And if it dies? So be it. That is the wager private enterprise is designed to make. The Preakness can be held at another racetrack.

The state has already done what the government does best: write checks. Now it should do what it rarely has the courage to do—walk away. Sell the property, transfer the risk, and let the market decide Pimlico’s fate. The people of Park Heights—and the taxpayers of Maryland—deserve more than a ceremonial money pit occasionally dressed up in seersucker and mint juleps.

Enough with the politics of nostalgia. Enough with the costly fantasy that government can do what markets will not. If Pimlico is to run again, let it run without taxpayer involvement.

Clayton A. Mitchell, Sr. is a life-long Eastern Shoreman, an attorney, and former Chairman of the Maryland Department of Labor’s Board of Appeals.  He is co-host of the Gonzales/Mitchell Show podcast that discusses politics, business, and cultural issues.