Slots, Md.'s Off-the-Track Cure-All

A more successful strategy, it seems to me, would involve selling off Pimlico and using the proceeds to rebuild a genuinely classy track at Laurel, with six-week meetings in the spring and fall, including the Preakness. The complex might also include year-round riding, training and veterinary programs, a steeplechase course, auction facilities and a small conference center.

No doubt there would be a need to subsidize these facilities and the race purses to attract top horses and jockeys. But for that, wouldn't it make more sense to expand the network of off-track betting venues that could not only generate revenue for the state but also begin to rebuild interest and excitement in horse racing?

If there were additional need to provide modest subsidies to Maryland horse farms, that could be done through conservation easements that would assure the state's money was being used to preserve green pastures rather than line the pockets of track owners.

For the rest of us, there are a couple of clear advantages to this more modest, market-based approach.

The first is that it would avoid the inevitable "arms race" with Delaware and Pennsylvania, which already have slots at their tracks, and would respond to any new competition from Maryland by using more and more slot revenue for luring gamblers and less and less for public education.

And the other? We could finally all move on to something other than slot machines.

Steven Pearlstein can be reached at pearlsteins@washpost.com.