The Maryland Jockey Club will race 120 days in 2025 under a schedule approved October 28 by the state’s Racing Commission.

While the number of days has fluctuated in recent years, it has consistently been above the approved figure. In 2023, Laurel Park and Pimlico, the two MJC tracks, combined to run 160 days. In 2019 the figure was 174.

Of the approved number, 114 of the days will be at Laurel Park, with the remaining six constituting a truncated Preakness meet at Pimlico May 9-17. Racing generally will be on a Friday-Sunday schedule.

There will be no racing in Maryland during the first half of January 2025, with the first scheduled day being January 17, and the MJC will also skip a racing weekend in mid-March. That weekend – March 14-16 – is when Colonial Downs is expected to hold the 2025 Virginia Derby, which will be a points race towards entry in the Kentucky Derby.

The MJC will also not race during July or August, which will be the primary meet for Colonial Downs. After June 29, the next live race day in Maryland will come August 22 at Timonium.

The new Maryland Jockey Club – a nonprofit entity under the auspices of the state’s Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority – is slated to take control of day-to-day racing in Maryland January 1.

One reason for the reduction in days is the decline in national horse population, which is putting pressure on racing programs all over the country.

Another is pressure on the purse account. In recent years funds in the purse account have also subsidized the operations of the MJC’s outgoing owner, the Stronach Group. But the Stronach Group says that even with the subsidies, it has been losing millions of dollars annually.

The new law which put in motion the so-called Pimlico Plus plan – to consolidate racing at Pimlico, supported by a yet-to-be-identified training center – requires that any deficits incurred by the new nonprofit MJC be covered by funds from the purse account. That puts additional strain on the account.

At the meeting, the Commission also approved the Maryland State Fair’s request for racing days. As has been the norm in recent years, the Fair expects to run seven days at the Timonium oval during the State Fair. The scheduled days are August 22-24 and August 29-September 1.

The Commission also approved up to two days of live racing at Fair Hill. Both are Sundays, the first slated for May 25 and the second for August 3, though organizers from the Cecil County Breeders’ Fair said the plan was to run “at least” one day at Fair Hill. The second date provides some flexibility in case the course is not yet usable.

There has been no parimutuel racing at Fair Hill for the last several years, as first the pandemic and then issues with the racecourse itself prevented the facility from hosting racing. 

An unusual state law directs the Commission to award “at least two but not more than eight one-day race meetings a year for steeplechase, hurdle, or flat racing” at Fair Hill. The license to conduct those days is to go to “the Cecil County Breeders’ Fair, Inc. or its successor.”

But at the Commission’s October 1 meeting, two different groups, a reconstituted Cecil County Breeders’ Fair and the Fair Hill Foundation, appeared claiming to fit the bill. The Commission at that time directed the two groups to achieve detente, and yesterday, representatives of the Cecil County Breeders’ Fair appeared before the Commission to make the request with the support of the Fair Hill Foundation.

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