By: Liz Farmer

The new owners of Pimlico Race Course are upping the ante in a big way for next year’s Preakness Stakes. Actually it’s not just big. It’s humongous. Like multimillion dollar humongous.

MI Developments Inc. announced Friday that it will award a $5.5 million bonus to the winner of the 2011 Preakness Stakes to be split $5 million for the owner and $500,000 to the jockey — if the horse wins two earlier races at MID tracks.

Dubbed “Preakness 5.5,” horses qualify for the prize by winning in one of the preliminary races at MID-owned Gulfstream Park, Santa Anita Park and Golden Gate Fields. It’s a pretty smart move by the Ontario-based company to generate better competition and larger fields — which lead to more wagering and more money for MID — at its tracks next spring.

Here’s the breakdown on how horses/owners will qualify:

At Santa Anita Park and Golden Gate Fields:
The winner of the Grade III El Camino Real (at Golden Gate) and the winner of Santa Anita’s Grade II Bob Lewis or the Grade II San Felipe, will qualify for the Preakness 5.5 if the horse goes on to win the Santa Anita Derby.

At Gulfstream Park:
A horse must win either the Grade III Holy Bull Stakes or the Grade II Fountain of Youth, and then go on to win the Grade I Florida Derby.

$5.5 million may sound like a hefty price to pay (especially when you consider this is the parent company of Magna Entertainment Corp., which didn’t want to pay the $28.5 million license fee for its Laurel Park slots bid last year). But MID is getting more than paid back by the better competition it’ll generate at its other tracks. And of course, there’s always the chance that no horse will qualify. (And if I were MID I’d be praying to all kinds of gods for that to happen. I’m just saying.)

But this is horse racing after all. And everything’s a gamble.