Unique Atmosphere, Fuller Fields Buoy Timonium

Buoyed by brisk betting business over the three-day opening weekend of racing at Timonium, officials at the Maryland State Fair and Agricultural Society, Inc., are hoping to parlay the strong start into a similarly solid finish over the final four programs of the meet, which runs this Friday through Labor Day Monday.

Longer-term goals based on a rejuvenated revenue stream at the five-furlong throwback oval include possible upgrades to the facility and the desire to grow the state's Thoroughbred fan base through up-close interactions with the Thoroughbreds that compete there.

“You know, we're the last survivor of a fair circuit that used to be in effect, and we're the last one east of the Mississippi River. So it's kind of a unique thing,” said Bill Reightler, the fair's coordinator of racing operations, in a Monday interview. “Our handle for the first three days is up over a million dollars. Our attendance is up almost 10%. We have another four days of the meet left, and we're hoping the numbers will hold up and that we've made some significant gains here.”

Timonium can't be classified as a “boutique” upper-crust race meet the way Saratoga Race Course or Keeneland Race Course are. But Maryland's racing industry regulators and participants respect that a healthy niche still exists for mid-level racing at an offbeat, few-frills facility that draws the type of demographic– namely, thousands upon thousands of potential new fans–that marketing executives at commercial tracks nationwide covet, but can't always attract.

“As Bill and I stand here, we're looking at a Ferris wheel that's right on the far turn of the racetrack at the head of the stretch,” said Bill Marlow, chairman of the fair's racing committee. “And we realize that every day we have between 50,000 and 75,000 people that come into the fair and midway area. We don't know of any other racetrack that has that opportunity to have all of those potential new racing fans that close. All they have to do is walk 150 steps, and they can see a live horse, and live racing. That's where we stand with fitting in and returning something to the industry.”

Timonium management attempts to convert newcomers into casual fans by holding “Thoroughbred 101” seminars about handicapping and horse ownership. On the midway side of the property, an exhibit called Horse Land features educational materials and prize giveaways in which the winners must go to the track grandstand to redeem their freebies, which results in a bump up in foot traffic to the racing side of the facility. Timonium staffers also spontaneously pick children out of the crowd to allow them to become honorary paddock judges for each race, allowing them to get close to the horses and holler “Riders up!” to the jockeys.

“That's one of our selling points to the industry. The Timonium State Fair's role is to help grow new fans,” Reightler said. “I have heard three instances in the last month of prominent national horse owners saying, 'When I was a kid, my dad brought me to the races, and I was hooked.' So it all starts from that. Have you ever realized how much we, as adults, revert back to these experiences we've had in our childhoods? That's what our mission is here at Timonium for the horse industry.”

Of course, the newbie fans aren't the ones driving the betting, at least not yet. Reightler attributed the opening-weekend boost in handle to a concerted effort to pay purses closer to the daily averages elsewhere in the competitive mid-Atlantic region, thus making for a more compelling betting product. At the fair's request, the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association earlier this summer approved hiking daily average Timonium purses to $185,000, up from $160,000 a year ago, an increase of 16%.

“Once we got the purse increase, we worked to do other things,” said Reightler. “Increase marketing, [do] a lot of one-on-one work with the trainers to make sure they knew we had our purse increase, and [establish] our first stakes race run here in nine years. In fact, that $110,000 stakes is the highest [purse] that we've had in the 139-year history of the fair.”

That stakes, the $75,000 Coalition S., had its base purse augmented with $25,000 in bonuses paid to Maryland bred/sired horses, and an additional $10,000 bonus would have been paid if the winner was a Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sale graduate. The Aug. 26 race drew 43 nominations, a field of nine started (10 starters is the maximum at Timonium), and Maryland-breds ran 1-2-3.

Other incentives to horsemen include a $20,000 points-based trainer award, a separate $5,000 trainer bonus for the trainer with most earnings during the meet, and a $50 groom award in every race for the best turned-out horse.

“We have a [national] problem,” Reightler said. “We're down another thousand foals [in the projected crop]. We have a horse shortage, yet we've really increased our field sizes so far. Now I'm probably speaking a little early, but we've all put a lot of work into this, and I'm optimistic it will bear fruit.”

Racing at Timonium dates to 1887, and a robust fairs and summer-through-autumn “leaky roof” circuit once existed from the mid-Atlantic region up into New England. Maryland's two other racing fairs, Hagerstown and Marlboro, ceased operations in 1970 and 1993, respectively.

A major reason that racing at fairs died off is safety. “Bullring” tracks measuring four or five furlongs in circumference hosting bottom-level Thoroughbreds often resulted in equine and human carnage that simply doesn't pass muster in today's more welfare-centric era of the sport.

“The [Timonium] track is very safe,” Reightler said. “First and foremost, this track is only used for two things, the state fair meet and the Fasig-Tipton 2-year-old-in-training sale in May. The rest of the time, the surface is skinned back and the base is opened. So key to the safety of the track is a very consistent base….The turns are banked at four degrees, and we have a track superintendent that really has a passion for it.”

Despite the precautions, three horses failed to finish in Timonium races over the weekend, including a heels-clipping incident that resulted in a jockey spill in the very first race of the meet.

As for the future of the fairgrounds, Reightler and Marlow expressed optimism but did not want to discuss specifics. The site has been mentioned in published news reports for years as a possible location for a casino or electronic slots gaming facility.

When the fairgrounds partnered with the Maryland Jockey Club to open an off-track-betting (OTB) location there in early 2016, the project faced vociferous resistance from a group of neighborhood residents who cited fears that the OTB would escalate vehicle traffic and attract unsavory characters.

The controversy has since died down, and Reightler said the Timonium OTB is now “the highest-grossing OTB in the state.”

In terms of the immediate future though, Reightler's main concern is making sure the opening weekend momentum carries forward through the Labor Day conclusion of Timonium's annual seven-day meet.

“That's going to give us the energy to move forward here and talk to our board about putting in some more resources,” Reightler said. “We have some plans with our facility, turning it into more of a park-like atmosphere, and just continuing to grow it.”