Kyle Goon: As Churchill Downs attempts to undermine the Preakness, Maryland racing is doing what it must to survive

How much is enough? For Churchill Downs, its appetites seem endless.

The publicly traded company that owns the Kentucky Derby and a sprawling portfolio of horse racing tracks across multiple states has become the dominant power in the industry. But if you’re imagining that, somehow, it might use that stature to be a leader in saving horse racing — a sport facing seemingly perpetual existential crises — you’d be wrong.

It’s much easier, and potentially much more profitable, to be a bully and gobble up everyone else’s lunch. Maryland is watching that shortsighted strategy play out in a clunky rollout of a thoroughbred racing series that very obviously excluded the Preakness.

Fortunately for Maryland, it has finally decided to be a combatant instead of a victim.

I’ve spent the last week talking to industry sources to understand the extent of two important announcements in horse racing, a business that resembles an Old West outlaw town. Everyone invariably speaks to the mission of “saving” horse racing, yet their decisions almost always start with self-interest.

The parties acting selfishly now include Maryland. It announced an NBC TV deal that will move the Preakness back eight days to the fourth Sunday in May, which falls on Memorial Day weekend in four of the next six years. The state — which has poured well over half a billion dollars into renovating Pimlico Race Course and acquiring the Preakness’ intellectual property rights, among other costs — is taking the only measures it can in this jungle where survival of the fittest is the only law.

Many in the state believe moving the Preakness’ date will protect the race’s cultural relevance. It expands the previous two-week window after the Derby that has become a deterrent for modern-day trainers. The last two Derby winners, Sovereignty and Golden Tempo, skipped the Preakness for a better shot at winning the Belmont three weeks later.

Maryland’s decision puts pressure on the Belmont, but there was really no other choice to maintain its own race’s prestige.

“You cannot control your future if you do not own it,” Gov. Wes Moore said in a news conference Wednesday. “You do not control what the future brings if you aren’t the ones making the decision about what the future brings.”

Maryland must control what it can, because Churchill Downs will attempt to flex its own leverage without concern for the health of the larger industry. Its bloodless corporate model will happily kill off horse racing elsewhere, as long as its own tracks earn a bigger slice of profit.

The other major announcement last week only illustrates our modern-day ruthlessness. Churchill Downs and the New York Racing Association announced a racing series for 3-year-old thoroughbreds with a $5 million pool. The calendar includes six races across five months that has the Derby and the Belmont but not the Preakness.

Organizing officials have claimed the series is attempting to augment the Triple Crown, the most important series in the sport, yet only one jewel is excluded from the lineup.

At least to the folks I spoke to, the move reeks of vindictiveness from Kentucky.

It was only two months ago when Maryland acquired the Preakness IP from former owner the Stronach Group, as was its contractual right. It scooped the IP out from under Churchill Downs, which stood to hold two of the three Triple Crown jewel rights. The state would have had to continue paying licensing fees in perpetuity (reportedly with an escalator, only expanding the financial pain).

I wrote at the time that it would be irresponsible for Maryland to allow Churchill Downs to buy the rights, and eventually Moore and his administration agreed, convinced in part by many in-state parties who wanted Maryland to control its own business.

Perhaps Churchill Downs is feeling steamed that the rights it thought it was getting from Stronach — and a gravy train of Maryland taxpayer dollars — wound up in different hands. It’s hard to explain otherwise how it could move forward with this series announcement, which one observer described to me as “cockamamie.”

Several people I spoke to agreed there was a long way to go to put the series into action, and even that would not guarantee its relevance can even approach the Triple Crown.

If the series was in the works for such a long time, it seems odd that the Maryland Jockey Club would have been caught off guard by learning of the announcement with the public. How could Churchill Downs keep a straight face by saying it has created an elite series for 3-year-olds without approaching the Preakness to get it in the fold?

The NYRA is an odd bedfellow here with Churchill, in part because Maryland’s model is somewhat similar to its own. But the thoroughbred series theoretically puts its other big races, such as the Jim Dandy and the Travers at Saratoga, on a bigger stage.

It’s also on the back foot because of the Preakness calendar change that puts the Belmont just two weeks after that race — and it’s hard to see how that resolves because the Preakness (NBC) and Belmont (Fox) are controlled by different TV partners. Perhaps the NYRA feels the series is its best chance at controlling its own future, too.

All these inherent tensions point to the central problem with the sport, which is that it is a loose association of states with no central authority to act within racing’s best interests. In these times, it breaks down into warring factions.

The series has drawn industry pushback, not only because it threatens the Preakness but because it poses direct conflicts with the Pennsylvania Derby and the Haskell in New Jersey. The Matt Winn Stakes and the proposed Championship race at Churchill could draw competitors away from both of those regional races.

Is it good for horse racing as a whole if it dies out in Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey? Of course not.

But no one in power has their eye on the bigger picture — certainly not Churchill Downs, which would probably rather whack the Pennsylvania Derby and the Haskell out of the competition because it would help its bottom line.

If horse racing — which has, in my opinion, lost much of its populist appeal to become a sport for elites — wants to grow again instead of fighting over the scraps of what is left of the industry, the best way to do it is as a unified group.

It’s not enough for just Churchill to thrive or the NYRA to thrive. Many of horse racing’s most passionate fans and loyalists first sparked their devotion in a small, regional track — not necessarily in the well-heeled stands of Churchill Downs or Saratoga. Many of those tracks are either disappearing or just barely holding on. It’s an indictment of the industry’s law of the jungle that, when Hawthorne racetrack closes this year or next, Illinois won’t have a single racing venue.

We don’t yet live in the world where these factions can see eye to eye, and perhaps with Churchill operating as it does, we never will. Until there is more harmony in horse racing, it only makes sense for Maryland to claw for every opportunity, including making self-interested decisions that pressure others.

Churchill Downs’ decisions are about profit margins and shareholders. For Maryland, it’s a matter of survival.

If Churchill Downs has a problem with Maryland controlling its own race, and if the NYRA is feeling pressure from the Preakness date change, they don’t have much space to gripe. It’s their jungle. It’s their law.

Since the big boys won’t look out for Maryland racing, Maryland racing has to look out for itself.