Quote:
Originally Posted by thespaah
Wait...I'm having a bit of trouble understanding the above. Are you claiming that Laurel management was more or less coercing horsemen to ship to Colonial under threat of losing stalls at Laurel? I'm really confused here.
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From its opening in 1997 through 2005, Colonial was managed and operated by the Maryland Jockey Club, the owners of Laurel and Pimlico.
The MJC, led by De Francis, had been one of the original applicants for a VA license, and wanted to build a track in Fairfax County (northern VA), and had offered to merge the new track into the Maryland circuit by shutting down Laurel during the new track's meet.
The merged circuit made a lot of sense, but voters in Fairfax shot down the new track in a referendum. So De Francis had a good plan but nowhere to build a track. Meanwhile, the Colonial Downs group had the land and was ready to build in New Kent, but getting horses to run there was going to be a problem if they ran at the same time as Laurel.
So they came up with this management deal, and the MJC did shut down Laurel during the Colonial meet. This led to the "encouragement" that Ruffian1 describes.
The management deal ended in 2005, and Colonial took over the management of the track.
