Plan calls for Laurel Park to open early in July

The Maryland Jockey Club is planning to open the Laurel Park meet one month earlier than initially scheduled while paring its weekly racing schedule by one day, racing officials in Maryland said on Tuesday.

The MJC has asked the Maryland Racing Commission to approve the new schedule, which would see Laurel open its meet July 3, rather than Aug. 1, while cutting the weekly racing schedule from four days a week to three, running Friday through Sunday. The commission is scheduled to meet June 16 and likely will approve the plan, said David Richardson, the executive secretary of the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, which has signed off on the plan.

“We’re definitely all on board,” Richardson said.

The shift of the schedule required the MJC and MTHA to reach out to Colonial Downs in Virginia, which has an agreement with Maryland racing interests over a two-state circuit incorporating summer race dates at the Virginia track. Colonial did not race last year due to a dispute between the track and horsemen in the state, and the track has no plans to run this year. According to Richardson, Colonial’s owners waived a requirement that the Maryland tracks refrain from live racing during the month of July.

MJC tracks have not held live races during July since 2010 due to the agreement with Colonial. The agreement expires in 2016, and Laurel was likely to seek summer racing dates next year. The July 4 holiday weekend is one of the biggest weekends on the national racing calendar.

Sal Sinatra, the general manager of the MJC’s two tracks, Laurel and Pimlico, said the new Friday cards in the summer likely will have a first post of approximately 3:30 p.m. Eastern, with live entertainment during the card and a theme, such as Crab Fest, in the hopes of grabbing some of the commuting crowd along the busy corridor connecting Baltimore and Washington. Sundays will be marketed as family days, Sinatra said.

“I want to get some new people out to the track, and that’s going to take some new thinking,” Sinatra said.

Under the previous schedule, Laurel was to run 11 live racing dates in August, take a break for a seven-day meet at the Maryland State Fair at Timonium, and resume racing Sept. 10, with live racing through the end of the year.

Under the new schedule, Laurel still will take a break for the Timonium meet, which is scheduled for Aug. 28 to Sept. 7, but will run three days a week from the July 3 starting date through the end of the year. Richardson said the new schedule will provide two more live racing dates than the old schedule.