By james art 
As a relief for all the talk of upcoming track closure, look inside my crystal ball to look at what the races in New York, Maryland and Florida may look like in three years …
Imagine that the year is 2028. A newly reconstructed Belmont Park, thanks to the huge capital infusion of $ 455 million, has secured the future of New York racing for another half century. The last time Belmont suffered a wholesale reconstruction was in 1968, when Nelson Rockefeller was governor.
Belmont’s new Grandstand, designed by the Architect Populs Stadium in collaboration with NYRA, modernizes the experience of the day of the race. By shrinking Belmont’s 1.275 million square feet to one -fifth size, the stylish gathering provides an elegant new place for year -round races. It is a work of art, admirable as a piece of sculpture in a more similar environment. The enlarged green space around him gave New Yorkers what they wanted: More outdoor -style places, similar to the backyard of the Saratoga.
Increased New York horses have encouraged breeders and owners to invest in the ecosystem of the state. Belmont’s new Tapeta track in Belmont allows year -round winter racing, reducing horses injuries and scratches from a rainy day by Turf runners. The umoted facility proudly hosted the Breeders Cup in November 2027, marking the first return to the Northeast event since 2007 to Montmut Park.
Just as the triumphant was the return of bets to Belmont to their original home, where new tunnels and infrastructure below the 45-ACK field supported a party worthy of all who are under 45 in New York. Creative Event programming attracts a more young demographic group that never steps into the now demolished “Big A” at Aqueduct, whose huge and dark gathering since 1959 has become an outdated relic.
In Maryland, a recently reconstructed Pimlico racing course, located five miles from the center of Baltimore, will again host PREAKNESS bets after reconstruction of $ 400 million, which began in 2024. A creative deal this year has secured the future of Racing in Maryland when the Striach group agreed to transfer the ownership of the Pimlico to the Operational Administration of New Maryland Cholotbred Racetrack. 1/ST also closed Laurel Park’s gates forever to consolidate Maryland competitions in Pimlico. And the original Pimlico cast iron gate of the 19th century was returned to its right home after being exhibited at the National Museum of Competitions and Hall of Fame in Saratoga.
The new Pimlico Council was designed by the same architects behind the latest repairs in Belmont, Churchill Downs and Ascot. Their company was named Hock when it designed Kamden Yads of Baltimore, which opened in 1992. This retro -style Balpark for the design of Orioles revolutionized the stadium by returning strange Balpark functions and an intimate fan of a past era. It gave rise to a wave of substitutes for overly large -scale concrete stadiums for cutting cookies, which were opened in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati in 1970 and 1971.
The most surprising development in 2028 is the return of thoroughbred competitions to Hyaleya Park, 12 miles from the center of Miami, for the first time since 2001.
This is the result of an agreement to provide a future for competitions in South Florida, reached with horsemen in Florida, government officials and Hyalea owners, the late John Brunette family, who bought Hialeah in 1977 when the Cup of the Breeders came Hialeah in 2029 will fulfill a dream held by Brunette until his death in 2018. The event has not been in Florida since 1999.
All this was followed by the expressed interest of the Stronach Group group in the development of its valuable real estate in Gulfstream Park to maintain competitions on the site. In addition to perennial Pegasus ticket owners, few racing people are sad to see Gulfstream GO. In 2006, when it opened after the $ 130 million repairs, critics called it a glorious shopping center. One foot from Palm Beach said her paddock reminded her of Caesar’s palace in Las Vegas: over the top and sticky.
In contrast, when the hyalia opened again after the repair in 1932, the track became one of the most beautiful in the United States, which is still, thanks to the recent touch and its preservation and management in half a century of three generations of three generations The Brunette family. His Renaissance Renaissance club house, built in the great depression by Philadelphia’s Horseman Joseph Wyner and Konducky Edward Bradley, remains intact. It is surrounded by restored gardens of the local flora and the lake of the field with iconic flamingos. The statue remembers 1948. The winner of the triple crown citation, which won all three competitions there in February.
The Palm Meadows training center, almost 50 miles north of Gulfstream Park, was not a viable alternative. The surrounding community of Boynton Beach was not exactly hospitable. The values of real estate there have emerged as another long -term threat to the competitions. And racing interests preferred not to remain dependent on the site owner, the Stronach group.
This has opened a way for a new generation of horsemen, in partnership with John Brunette, Jr. and his nephew Stephen Brunette, Jr. to revive Hyali, as Widener and Bradley made nearly a century earlier. The important thing is that the revenue from one of Florida’s best casinos in Hialeah saved the track owners to convert the desired place for a standing room into first-class seating areas. In the apron and the hyaliah patch, the blue-bloody snow birds-which arrive comfortably through two almost adjacent airports-remaining to rub their elbows with blue collars from the surrounding neighborhoods of Miami.
For the paraphrase of the 20th century, Tourf Joe Palmer writer, hyalia, is one of the last places where the random athlete “can see competitions. Elsewhere, he just sees competitions, which is not the same thing at all. “
For fans of racing in the east, as if some songs had to die and go to the sky before the sport could enjoy this rebirth.
In Florida, as in New York and Maryland, they say that happiness has something to look forward to.
Writer Carter Wilki lives in Boston, where Suffolk Downs closed in 2019.