Michael Algeo steps down from "emasculated" Commission * The Racing Biz

Michael Algeo steps down from “emasculated” Commission

Frank Vespe
June 19, 2023

Calling his tenure “an absolute honor and privilege,” Maryland Racing Commission chairman Michael Algeo stepped down from that position and resigned from the Commission June 14 with immediate effect.

Algeo informed Gov. Wes Moore (D) of his decision that day and announced it publicly Saturday on Off to the Races Radio-Maryland.

Algeo’s resignation adds to what has become to observers an unexpectedly wholesale change in the face of the Commission. He is the fourth member of the Commission to resign or not have their terms renewed in recent months, joining longtime Commissioner David Hayden, health and welfare subcommittee chair Tom Bowman, and longtime harness advocate Tom Winebrener.

Algeo’s chairmanship had been slated to end in October, while his term on the Commission was scheduled to run until July 2024. He had been appointed to the Commission in 2016 by then-Governor Larry Hogan (R).

“The Governor had replaced three of our longtime commission members, and we had new people coming on,” Algeo explained Saturday. “So I just thought it was a good time to give the Governor more of the opportunity to select his person.”

His departure comes at a particularly fraught time for the racing industry in Maryland, especially, though not exclusively, on the Thoroughbred side. The Laurel-Pimlico rebuild plans envisioned when the General Assembly passed the Racing and Community Development Act in 2020 have gone nowhere and now are completely infeasible.

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The new industry consensus is to shrink down to one primary mile track, and the political energy is behind Pimlico. But the Pimlico property is too small to accommodate all of the horses necessary for a year-round racing program, necessitating a training center or similar facility elsewhere. But where, and how that would be paid for, remain problematic.

On top of all that, the legislature in its most recent session created the Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority with an immediate mandate to create a vision and plan for what Maryland racing should look like in the future. Whether that future will include current track operators 1/ST Racing is uncertain; the company has intimated it would be willing to reduce its footprint in Maryland, though it continues to insist it wants to run the Preakness meet.

Delegate Nick Mosby (D-Baltimore City, at far left of picture) speaks in 2019 to the Maryland Racing Commission, including from left, Executive Director Mike Hopkins, counsel Eric London, and Commissioners Dr. Tom Bowman, Clarissa Coughlin, Chairman Michael Algeo, David Hayden, and Tom Winebrener. *All five pictured Commissioners are no longer on the MRC.Photo by The Racing Biz.*

No wonder Algeo referred in his letter to the “myriad challenges that lie ahead.”

“It’s been a process,” he acknowledged Saturday. “And I’m going to be as interested as everybody else to see where this goes and how this all ends.”

There are questions as to what exactly the Commission’s role will be going forward. The 2020 legislation removed control of the Racetrack Facilities Renewal Account (RFRA) – slots money dedicated to capital improvements at racetracks and provided to track operators on a matching basis – from the Commission in order to preserve those funds for the larger capital projects envision in the law.

Over the last year the federally created Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) has come into being and gradually begun to take over an array of health and safety issues, including medication rules and enforcement, that formerly were the Commission’s purview.

And now comes the state’s Racetrack Operating Authority, with its own potentially wide-ranging mandate.

“I believe that the role of the Maryland Racing Commission has been diminished significantly, and has been emasculated significantly,” Algeo said. “And it’s just not what it was when I started in 2016.”

Algeo, a retired circuit court judge who resides in Montgomery County, was a surprise when named to the Commission, a person with no industry experience and known by few in the industry. Algeo said he was “as surprised as everybody else” to get the call from Gov. Hogan.

Hogan “knew that there was some issues [in the racing industry], maybe between the thoroughbreds and the standardbreds, issues between the horsemen and the breeders,” Algeo explained. “And he told me that he wanted somebody that was not involved in the industry, somebody that had the experience that I had served as a circuit court judge, that would be able to conduct the hearings, listen to people and try to make fair decisions.”

One of the things Algeo learned during his tenure, he said, was that the issues Hogan cited back in 2016 “don’t seem to go away. They just seem to change.”

Algeo received a “Special Award of Merit” from the Maryland Jockey Club at the Alibi Breakfast two days prior to this year’s Preakness Stakes. The award recognizes those who have made a positive impact on the racing industry, and Algeo joined prior winners like Jim McKay, Chick Lang, King Leatherbury, and the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance.

“I thought it was time for new blood, younger blood, somebody that can come in and have a fresh look,” Algeo said. “God bless them because it’s a great industry with great people. And I feel very honored to have served for the past seven years. Riders up!”