​BALTIMORE — As Belmont Park reopens after a $555 million transformation, Maryland is in the midst of its own ambitious — and costly — effort to secure a future for horse racing in Baltimore.The state is spending about $400 million to build a new Pimlico Race Course and another $120 million to transform Laurel Park into a year-round training center. It also paid $85 million this summer to retain the intellectual property rights to the Preakness Stakes and Black-Eyed Susan Stakes after Churchill Downs sought to acquire them.The timing is significant. As Maryland rebuilds Pimlico and reworks the Preakness, some of the biggest names in American racing are making their own moves to strengthen their positions.Belmont Park is reopening after more than three years of construction with a new five-story, 1.25-million-square-foot facility. It comes as the New York Racing Association and Churchill Downs join forces on a new national Thoroughbred Championship Series that will begin in 2027. Pimlico is excluded from the competition.That puts Maryland in an unusual position: The state is making one of the largest investments in its racing history while its signature race is outside an effort designed to connect the nation’s most prominent 3-year-old races into a season-long competition.Thomas Rhoads, a Towson University economics and sports business professor, cautions against viewing the spending simply as an arms race among racetracks. In Maryland, he told The Baltimore Sun, the investment is aimed at maintaining the state’s position in the industry while protecting a broader horse-racing ecosystem that includes farms and training facilities in addition to racetracks and betting.“All the spending at Belmont and Pimlico and Laurel Park is, in some sense, simply to maintain the status as a premier brand in horse racing,” Rhoads said.Maryland’s investment, he said, “can partly be interpreted as an attempt to keep the entire industry in Maryland.”The competition that faces horse racing has also changed significantly over the past decade, especially with the expansion of online sports betting, which has created another competitor for gambling dollars, Rhoads said.“Online sports betting across the U.S. means there’s more competition for betting dollars and the horse racing industry must stay competitive in that market,” Rhoads said.Frank Vespe, founder and publisher of TheRacingBiz.com, told The Sun that modern spectators expect more from venues, particularly those hosting major events such as the Preakness and Belmont Stakes. The racetracks hosting those events were aging and needed upgrades as the economics of horse racing changed, he said in an email.“So I see this less as a de facto arms race and more as a rational response to a set of problems facing the racetrack operators,” Vespe said.The six-race Thoroughbred Championship Series will include the Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes, Matt Winn Stakes, Jim Dandy Stakes, Travers Stakes